Parenting Assignment
by LadyNoirShipping
Summary: Marinette and Adrien are given the job of taking care of a robot baby together for a parenting class assignment. How are the two supposed to save Paris whilst taking care of a baby, all the while trying to keep their identities hidden from one another? Inspired by the fic "Sack Babies" by insomniatic-titans
1. Chapter 1

**The idea for this story was inspired by "Sack Babies" by insomniac-titans, a hilarious fic that you should definitely check out!**

 **Without further ado, I hope you enjoy!**

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Marinette's class sat in an eerie silence as they awaited for the dreadful the arrival of their teacher. Today was the start of a new weeklong assignment, one which they were far from thrilled to begin.

Recently they had been learning about family studies and when Ms. Mendeleiev had first mentioned that at the end of the unit they would be partnered up and given the task of taking care of an electronic baby, most of them were fairly excited.

At the time it had seemed like a fun and easy assignment, but their opinions soon changed as soon as they began learning about their tasks as temporary parents. It was then that they realized just how much work they would need to put into this assignment. Their moods only grew worse when in the last class their teacher had brought one of the dolls in as demonstration. The second it started wailing its head off they had all groaned, knowing full well what the week ahead of them was going to be like.

The sound of the door opening caught their attention and all heads anxiously turned to see Ms. Mendeleiev entering the room with a large storage case on wheels containing the babies. Marinette and Alya silently exchanged nervous glances.

"As you all know, today you will be starting your parenting assignment." Ms. Mendeleiev got straight to the point. She opened the storage unit, revealing the rows of babies, then took one out and held it up.

"I will assign you each into pairs and you will be given one doll. For the next week you and your partner will have to act as parents to your child. We have already gone over this, but the dolls are filled with censors that record how well you care for them; this includes meeting their needs, responding to their cries and whether or not you put them through any danger or abuse."

She put the doll down and held up a clipboard.

"When it comes to parenting, the responsibilities are supposed to be shared by both parents. Simply swapping the baby between one another and not spending any time together to help each other out will only make your job harder. Together you will make your own detailed report about your activities. Now, as for your partners..."

Marinette squeezed her eyes shut and crossed her fingers. Normally she would have been calling upon her Ladybug luck to help her be partners with Adrien, but in this case she wanted nothing more than to not be partnered up with Chloe. Ms. Mendeleiev had stated the day before that she wasn't going to pair them up according to gender, meaning she could be put with anyone.

However, what made her even more worried was that their crazy teacher also enjoyed to make her students suffer. She believed that working together with your friends was counterproductive, so whenever they had group projects she purposely paired everyone up with people they don't normally spend time with, matching them based on how well she believes their personalities and working habits go together.

More than once had Marinette been paired up with Chloe over the course of the year. She had been somehow managed to put up with her all of those other times, but this project was something she definitely didn't want to be stuck doing with Chloe, knowing that the blonde wouldn't contribute at all. Heck, she would even take Kim over Chloe. He probably couldn't be trusted to take care of or even hold a baby, but at least he would do his share of the work.

Ms. Mendeleiev began reading off the names of her pre-planned list of partners, sighs erupting from the class after each pair was listed. Staying true to her beliefs, the partners their teacher chose were quite random. Kim and Sabrina, Max and Ivan, Nino and Juleka, Rose and Mylene, Alix and Nathanael.

"Chloe and..." Marinette's ears perked at the sound of Chloe's name, the anxiety in her stomach growing. Neither Chloe nor herself been paired up yet and there wasn't many students left for her to be with. This was it, it was all over. She was going to be paired up with Chloe and fail this assignment.

"Alya"

 _What?_

"What!" The shouts of two girls, one on her left and the other across the aisle on her right, mimicked her very thoughts.

Marinette turned to her friend who had stood up from her desk and stared back at the teacher in disbelief.

"I am _not_ being partners with Chloe on this project!" Alya stated.

"I don't want to be partners with _you_ either," Chloe shot at her, then turned to the teacher. "This must be a mistake, I demand to be partnered up with someone else." She crossed her arms and stuck her snotty little nose in the air.

"Alya, sit down! You two will be partners on this assignment regardless of your personal opinions. Maybe this experience will help you to grow closer and stop bickering so much."

"As if!" Alya slammed herself down to her seat with a huff, shooting a sideways glare to Chloe. Marinette gave her a pitying smile to show her friend that she sympathized with her, although she did feel bad for the feeling of happiness that welled in her stomach, but hey, she couldn't help it. She didn't know what she would have done if Chloe had been her partner.

Marinette was flooded with relief and she closed her eyes as her anxious heart slowed down, tuning out the world around her. Breathing deeply and letting out a soft sigh. She wouldn't have to put up with Chloe, it seems her luck didn't fail her this time.

When she reopened her eyes she was met with the sight of the beautiful blonde head in front of her turned in her direction, a smile spread across his perfect face. She felt flustered just from having his gaze on her.

"I'm looking forward to working with you," Adrien said.

Marinette stared back blankly and blinked a few times. What was he talking about? Working together with her? As she made sense of his words it slowly began to dawn on her what he meant. Face burning, she shot her head to the side to look at Alya who simply nodded to confirm her thoughts. She brought her stare back to Adrien who was still smiling, though his eyes showed his confusion at her reaction.

"Y-yes, w-we'll be partners great...uh...great partners!" Her face was probably as red as Nathanael's hair, but she couldn't care less. She was going to be partners with Adrien, she was going to take care of a (robot) baby with Adrien!

Her head was in the clouds and she wasn't focusing on anything as the class shifted around so everyone was sitting beside their partners. One second she was in her desk and the next she was seated beside Adrien in the front row. He looked at her confused as she sat there with a goofy grin on her face, eyes focused on nothing.

Ms. Mendeleiev began moving about the classroom, handing a baby to each pair along with wristbands, sheets to record their details, a little bag of supplies, a holder that strapped the baby onto your back and a baby carrier. When the teacher came around to their desk she handed Adrien a little baby with blonde hair along with their supplies.

Marinette felt giddy just looking at the doll. With its blonde hair and blue eyes it looked just like them! It must be fate telling them to be together!

"What do you want to name him?" Adrien asked her.

Marinette was startled back to reality. "I-I can name him?"

"Sure," he smiled and nodded, "you are the mother after all."

"Louis!" She said without a moment of hesitation, already knowing the name of the son they'll have together in the future.

Adrien wrote the name down on their sheet of paper. "Louis, I like it."

 _'Louis Agreste,'_ Marinette mentally squealed, this was a dream come true!

Adrien turned to Marinette with a smile and opened his mouth as if to say something, but was cut off by the clatter of a chair and a bang.

"Oh hell no!"

All heads turned towards Alya, the cause of the disturbance. She was out of her seat with her hands slammed down on the desk in front of her.

"What's your problem?" Chloe asked while checking her nails, not caring in the least about what Alya was mad about.

"What's my problem? Are you serious? We are _not_ naming our baby Barthélémy Félicien Gaspard Bourgeois, that's my problem!"

Chloe shifted her gaze from her nails and glared up at Alya. "It's my Grandfather's name, do you have a problem with it?"

"Yes, I just finished telling you I do!" Alya flung her arms up in the air in exasperation at Chloe's stupidity.

Chloe only blew out a breath of annoyance and proceeded to write her chosen name down on their sheet, making Alya grind her teeth together.

"Knowing you," Chloe started, causing Alya to stiffen in annoyance, "you would probably want to give him some low-class commoner's name like Scamp."

"That's a dog's name," Alya growled through her clenched teeth.

Chloe smirked. "Fitting for _your_ son, but not for a Bourgeois."

Alya let out ragged breaths, trying to control herself before her anger exploded and someone, that someone being Chloe, got hurt. She turned her head to the side and caught Marinette's eyes which were giving her a sympathetic look, telling her to remain calm.

Marinette watched as her friend let out a steady exhale of breath. She hoped Alya would be able to survive the week.

Suddenly a piercing wail erupted from beside her and she caught Adrien jump as the baby he was holding began to cry.

He looked at her with a panicked expression. "How do we know what it wants?"

"Uhhhh..." Marinette had no clue, she hadn't ever taken care of a baby before! "W-why don't we just try everything until he stops."

Adrien nodded and looked down at Louis, deciding to go for the quickest solution first. "Hand me a diaper."

Marinette went straight to digging through the bag. They were provided with two diapers, each with a sensor inside of it which could detect when it was replaced. Her hand caught on its soft fabric and she pulled it out. Marinette turned to hand it to Adrien who already had the first diaper undone, but she noticed his shocked facial expression as he stared down at the naked baby.

"We'll have to change the baby's name."

"Huh?"

Confused, she looked over his arms and took in Louis' clear lack of male bits.

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 **I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!**


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of the school day went by with constant interruptions from the babies, there was even one point when the crying of one baby set off every other doll in the room, leading to half the class sitting outside trying to stop their wailing dolls.

Marinette felt as though just finishing the school day was the completion of a milestone, but the sight of her baby reminded her that this was a full 24/7 problem she would have to deal with. The only thing that was able to brighten her spirits at the moment was the thought of getting to spend time with Adrien, even if it was in the context of taking care of a robot baby.

Right after the two had discovered that Louis was actually a girl they quickly renamed him as Emma, another name which Marinette already had planned out for their future daughter. When the final bell rang and the teacher had dismissed the class, everybody began leaving the room in their assigned pairs, most of them grumbling about the project.

Alya leaned over the Marinette as she packed her books into her bag. "Do you think Chloe will help contribute to this at all, or will I be doing all the work myself?"

"Do you even need to ask?" Marinette replied, directing Alya's attention to Chloe who didn't spare them a second glance.

Alya sighed. "At least I know how to take care of a baby considering how much I had to help out my parents with my sisters, so I guess I could still get a good mark on this even without her."

A shrill squeal broke apart their conversation and they both turned to find Chloe had left her desk and made her way towards Adrien, locking him in a killer hug as if she was a damsel in distress that he just came to save.

"Oh Adri-poo," she whined with her voice seven pitches too high, "I got stuck being paired with Alya and I don't think I'll be able to make it, but I think I know a solution."

Adrien tried to pry himself from her grasp, but Chloe's grip was relentless. His face contorted into a strained smile as he replied.

"And what's your solution?"

Chloe finally loosened her hold on him. "Well, since Marinette and Alya are friends, and you and I are inseparable, wouldn't it make more sense for us to just switch partners? The teacher doesn't have to know, we can just make up what we write on our worksheets." She shot Marinette and Alya a smirk to which they both stared back with unamused expressions.

"So Adrikins," she continued, ignoring the two friends, "what do you say? Actually, you don't even need to answer, I already know what you're going to-"

"Chloe," Adrien said, finally able to gently push her off of him, "the teacher paired me and Marinette together and I think she made the decisions that she did for a reason. Maybe she thinks Marinette and I will work well together."

Part of what he said was true, he respected his teacher's decision for him to work with Marinette, but the other part of him didn't want to work with Chloe. She was his childhood friend and all, something his classmates still didn't understand, but she could get a little clingy, and by a little he meant a lot. Not only that, but he was also interested in working with Marinette. He didn't know much about her and hadn't gotten many opportunities to work together with her.

Chloe, however, didn't seem to like his response. She clung onto his arm like a protective girlfriend and glared at Marinette.

"Why would you want to work with _her_ when you could work with me!"

Adrien used all his might to force his arm away from her, apologizing in the process, then turned to Marinette and smiled.

"Shall we get going?"

Marinette's heart skipped a beat and with an overexcited nod she grabbed the carrier that Emma was in and moved around the desk to stand beside him. She gave Alya an apologetic look but her friend just waved her hand.

"I'll be fine, I can deal with Chloe. You go have fun."

Marinette followed Adrien out the door, hearing Chloe complain behind them as they left.

"I have fencing now," Adrien said, turning to her, "but you could come and watch, that way if anything happens with Emma I'll be there to help. That is, only if you don't mind...Marinette?"

Marinette didn't hear a word he said other than his invitation to watch him fence. If she died in that moment she would have no regrets as she already felt like she was in heaven. Her mind wandered to what it would be like being able to watch Adrien fence without having to secretly peek in through the window, this time she was actually invited!

 _'What if,'_ she thought to herself, _'I get injured while fencing and Adrien carries me bridal style to the infirmary. No wait, I'm not the one fencing. Then what if Adrien gets hurt and I tend to his wounds, then he falls in love with me and we get married and have 3 kids and Louis will be a boy and Emma will be real and-'_

"Marinette?" Adrien tried again, waving his hand in front of her face which had a goofy grin plastered on it. This time he was actually able to penetrate her thoughts, snapping her back to reality.

Marinette felt heat rush to her cheeks, embarrassed that she was caught daydreaming about their life together in front of him.

"Are you okay?" He asked. "You look a little flushed, are you sick?"

"I okay yes, no uh, fine yes, wait no, fine me," she slapped herself, "fencing...go..."

Adrien gave her a confused look, but nodded anyway.

They made their way to the gym where his fencing lessons were. Marinette watched as Adrien finished up in the changing room and entered back into the gym. He was perfect in every way, even when she couldn't see any part of his body under his gear and mask.

The lesson started with the students practising different poses, and then they moved onto sparring with one another. Just as Marinette already knew, Adrien was the best one in the class.

"Your daddy is so amazing," she said dreamily while resting her chin atop Emma's head, "we're going to get married one day you know, and then we'll have a real Emma."

Marinette would have continued talking to the doll, but the perfect opportunity she had been waiting for was actually starting to happen.

Adrien went to thrust at his opponent, but the other person caught him off guard and Adrien was knocked to the floor, his left ankle twisting in the wrong direction as he fell. He sat up and rubbed his ankle, letting out a small hiss of pain. Marinette was at his side in an instant, discarding Emma back into her carried by the bench.

"Are you okay? Did you break anything?"

"I'm find, I think I just twisted it."

"Here," Marinette said while holding out her arm, "you can lean on my shoulder and I'll take you to the infirmary."

Adrien offered her a confused smile. "I just twisted it, I don't think I need to go to the infirmary."

"You never know what could have happened, you should probably get it checked just in case."

She wasn't going to let this opportunity escape her, this was her chance to live a happy life together with Adrien. This was it, after today her life would be set and she could finally be together with him, nothing could ruin this moment for her! Nothing, that is, except for the crying of a baby.

They turned in the direction of the noise, spotting Emma as she lay in her carrier wailing. Adrien got up and limped his way over to Emma just as quickly as Marinette had made her way over to him when he fell. It wasn't as if the baby was dying or anything, did he have to go to her right when they were going to have their moment!

Adrien picked up Emma and started rocking her, trying to get her crying to stop. Marinette could have sworn the baby smirked at her as Adrien cradled her in his arms.

She couldn't believe it. She lost...to a doll...

It was her perfect chance to be with Adrien forever, but the doll ruined it, and now Emma had his full attention. Marinette was only able to watch with her mouth agape as Adrien calmed down the baby. Once she was settled down he handed Emma to Marinette and went back to fencing, apparently his ankle was feeling perfectly fine now.

"You did this," Marinette hissed to the baby, quiet enough so Adrien wouldn't hear, "you ruined my chance."

Emma let out a giggle in reply and Marinette's eyes grew wide.

"You...you did that on purpose, didn't you!"

She didn't care if people thought she was weird for accusing a doll of ruining her chances with Adrien, she knew that thing was out to ruin her life.

"You're worse than Chloe," she whispered again, sitting down with the baby in her lap. For some reason she felt as though the insult only brightened the baby's mood even more.

Marinette glumly sat through the rest of Adrien's fencing practice, all the while loathing the baby she was forced to take care of. When Adrien was finally finished she followed him out of the gym.

"So what are we going to do about taking Emma home?" He asked as they made their way down the hall.

"Well," Marinette said while blushing, "I know you have a photoshoot later today, so I don't mind taking her home tonight." It was a lie, she did mind taking the brat home, but she would do anything for Adrien.

"How did you know about my photoshoot?" He questioned.

Marinette froze as she took in Adrien's confused face. She knew because it was written on her schedule, just like every other fact about his life, but obviously she couldn't tell him that. _'Quick, think up an excuse!'_

"I overheard you telling Nino, I do sit in front of you and all."

 _'Nailed it!'_ She added silently to herself.

Adrien only looked more confused, not remembering telling Nino about his photoshoot today.

"When was that?"

"Oh, just the other day."

"Do you know when?"

"Just, you know, the other day.

Adrien seemed to buy it, thinking that maybe he forgot about telling Nino about the photoshoot. Maybe he had complained to his friend about it or something. Deciding to let it rest, he turned back to Marinette.

"Are you sure you're okay taking Emma home today? I promise I'll be the one to take her tomorrow night."

Marinette nodded. "It's fine, I don't mind at all."

If taking the little demon home would make Adrien happy then she was all too willing to do so.

The two had made it to the front of the school where's Adrien's ride was waiting. He smiled and patted Marinette's shoulder. "I owe you one."

With that she watched him leave, her heart fluttering the entire time until his car was out of sight.

"He owes me one," she said dreamily as Tikki poked her head out of her purse and giggled.

Nothing could have ruined her mood, except for Emma who found it to be the perfect time to start a screaming fit. Marinette sighed, this was going to be a long night.

 **~.~.~.~.~**

Marinette had only just finished dinner yet Emma was already starting up her fifth round of crying. Did this baby ever shut up!

She sighed after finally getting Emma to fall asleep, gently placing her in her carrier and hoping that she wouldn't wake up. She was too tired to even attempt to do her homework, all Marinette wanted to do at the moment was sleep. She felt like if that baby cried one more time her hair would start going grey early from stress.

Marinette had just curled up in her bed when there was a loud boom, the vibrations rattling the stuff around her room.

"What is it now!" She shouted, flinging herself from her bed and glaring at the baby. "Oh."

For once Emma wasn't the problem. She directed her attention towards her window where there was a cloud of smoke in the distance.

Marinette sighed, all she wanted to do was sleep but apparently she wasn't going to get the luxury.

"We better transform, Tikki."

"What about the baby?" The kwami asked, looking over to the doll that lay silent in her carrier.

"She's sleeping now. With all the crying she did she'll probably be out all night, we can just leave her."

Tikki nodded and Marinette called out for the transformation, sucking the little kwami into her earrings.

Marinette was halfway out her window when there was another explosion from the direction of the akuma, but this time the sound was followed by a loud wailing. Feeling her heart drop, Marinette looked back into her room at Emma who had woken up from all of the noise.

She was tempted to just leave her, the akuma was more important than her grade on this assignment, but then she remembered that she was partnered with Adrien. Dropping back into her room, Marinette went over to the baby.

She sighed to herself. "I can't let Adrien's grade suffer because of this, I wouldn't even have a good excuse as to why I neglected her needs."

Gathering up her determination, she scooped Emma into her arms and rocked her until the cries subsided. Once she was quiet, Marinette swiftly placed her into the baby holder that strapped onto her back and clipped it into place, Emma resting safely against her back.

Once again she pulled herself through the window that led to her balcony, glancing behind her at Emma as an uneasy feeling spread throughout her stomach.

"How am I going to explain you to Chat?"

* * *

 **I hope you enjoyed this chapter!**


	3. Chapter 3

Chat heard his Lady approaching before she arrived, thankful for his heightened cat-like senses. He turned around to face her as she landed behind him, ready to greet her in a flirtatious manner, maybe throwing in a pun or two, but stopped when he noticed the thing strapped to her back.

That was definitely a baby carrier, he knew since he had just received one earlier that day. Now, had he been thinking logically then he probably would have clued in to why she might be wearing it, but the second he saw it his mind started to race with ridiculous reasons as to why Ladybug had a baby carrier strapped to her.

"M-my Lady..." he paused with a gulp, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer, "when did you have a...a..."

"It's not real!" She snapped, already knowing where he was going with that question. He couldn't possibly be stupid enough to think that at some point within the past couple of days she had a baby.

Chat's heartrate slowed down and he sighed in relief, of course it was a fake baby, why would it be anything otherwise? If Ladybug had a baby then that would mean she was probably in a relationship, and if Ladybug was in a relationship then it would surely be with him.

He moved around closer to her, taking notice of her eye roll as he peeked around behind her to find that it was indeed a doll sitting inside the carrier.

"This doll," he said, "I have one too. My class is taking care of them for a school project." He looked back to face Ladybug with excitement in his eyes. "Does this confirm that you're a student too?"

Ladybug stiffened, trying to think of an excuse. The thought of Chat knowing anything about her civilian life bothered her, even if it was only her age range. Keeping her cool, she gave him a smirk and pushed him away.

"I could have this doll for any number of reasons, it doesn't have to be school related."

She knew it was a bad excuse, and from the look in Chat's eyes she could tell he didn't believe a word of it, but at least she didn't confirm his thoughts.

Ladybug began scanning the city looking for the akuma who they had lost sight of when she arrived. While she was focused on the area below Chat went to get a closer look at the baby on his Lady's back. However, upon further inspection he realized that it wasn't just any baby, it looked exactly like his little Emma.

He lifted the baby out of the carrier, the action catching Ladybug's attention.

"What are you doing, we have an akuma to go after?" she snapped and turned to find him smiling happily while holding up the baby.

"She looks exactly like mine!" He stated proudly as if this was an amazing fact.

"Yeah, well these things only come in about four different designs, there's bound to be tons that look just like this one," she stated bluntly, did she really have to explain that to him. They should be more focused on their jobs at the moment, not on her doll.

"But do you know what this means?" Chat asked. He continued his point when Ladybug only cocked an eyebrow in response. "I choose to believe that this means we are fated together." He was beaming as if what he said made perfect sense.

Ladybug could only sigh at his statement and grab the doll back from him, placing it in the carrier once more. "How does this have anything to do with being together?"

He ignored her question and went on to ask excitedly, "does this mean you go to the same school as me?"

Chat was still on the topic of Ladybug being a student, no matter what she said there was obviously no other reason a person would willingly carry one of those annoying dolls around.

Ladybug, however, was getting tired of the discussion already.

"I'm pretty sure most schools are doing this assignment right now, not just yours. But, more importantly, can we-" she paused as another explosion sounded, "-save this discussion for after the battle?"

They two instantly went into hero mode as their eyes finally locked on with the target. He wore a costume that looked like someone had taken buckets of paint and tossed them on him, he had a hat that looked something like a beret and a thin sculpting tool was tucked behind his ear.

From what they could tell, he was going around Paris destroying all forms of artwork with little round bombs, his most recent attack being the monument dedicated to Ladybug and Chat Noir. The heroes immediately jumped into action, quite literally. They leaped off the side of the building they were on and headed in the direction of the akuma victim who was already on the move again.

Ladybug shot out her yo-yo and used it to propel herself from one building to the next, gaining a lead on Chat who was jumping across the rooftops.

She made it to the akuma victim first, flinging her yo-yo at him where it wrapped around his arm just as he was about to throw another bomb. The man roared in fury at the sight of the heroes.

"Sorry," Ladybug yanked on her yo-yo, causing the man to lose his balance and fall to the ground, being pulled a little towards her, "but I can't let you do that."

"You, you don't know anything!" He yelled, ripping the yo-yo off his arm and getting back to his feet. "The life of an artist is so difficult, nobody wants to buy my art no matter how hard I work on it, yet they pay for horrible pieces that aren't even good. Now I am the Bomber and I-"

He was cut off by Chat who had finally caught up and landed beside his partner. "Wow, you're just _exploding_ with anger, aren't you?"

Furious at being cut off, the Bomber threw a couple of bombs at them which Chat smacked away with his pole. The black clad hero then raced towards the man, ready to use his pole like a baseball bat and smack him, but ended up hitting air as the Bomber jumped away. He was a lot more agile than he seemed.

Ladybug tried to catch him with her yo-yo but he managed to dodge her attack. Chat headed back to his partner's side.

"Do you think the akuma is in the tool behind his ear?" He asked as they both deflected another series of bombs that was thrown at them.

"Most likely, do whatever it takes to get it."

Chat nodded and headed back towards the enemy, him attacking from up close while Ladybug was releasing long range attacks. The two continued to launch attacks at the Bomber while he threw bombs at them, both sides dodging or deflecting each other's attempts.

Finally, Ladybug was able to draw the villain's attention towards her, allowing Chat the chance to move up behind the Bomber and smash his pole against his head, the impact causing the sculpting tool to go flying.

Ladybug quickly flung her yo-yo towards the tool, planning to smash it, but just as she did so there was a sudden, high pitched wail that sounded from behind her. The noise startled Ladybug enough for her to slightly jerk her arm to the side, causing her yo-yo to miss the sculpting tool by a couple of inches. The Bomber quickly scurried over to his akumatized item and snatched it up, tucking it safely into his pocket this time.

"Seriously!" Ladybug complained as she glanced at the baby on her back. "Now! You want to cry _now_!" She probably looked like an idiot yelling at a doll, but she didn't care.

Noticing the heroine's distraction, the Bomber threw one of his bombs at her. Ladybug realized what was happening just in time to dodge.

"Chat, can you cover me for a bit?" She called over to her partner who readily agreed and launched himself at the enemy, drawing his attention away from his Lady.

"What could you possibly want in the middle of a battle?" Ladybug mumbled as she tried to stop the baby's cries. She tried changing the diaper first, but that didn't seem to work. Next she attempted to feed it, holding the bottle against Emma's mouth. The robot baby sucked the imaginary milk contentedly.

"Hurry up already," she said to herself, bouncing on the heels of her feet impatiently. How hungry was this thing?

"Uh, Ladybug," Chat called over to her, "I don't mean to bother you, but I could really use some help."

Ladybug turned her attention towards her partner who was struggling to deflect all of the bombs being launched at him now that the Bomber's full attention was on him.

"Hurry up," Ladybug told Emma, "I need to help Chat!"

As if the doll understood what she had said, the second she finished speaking Emma made a cooing sound to signal that she was done with the bottle. Apparently she didn't want anything to happen to Chat.

Sighing in relief, Ladybug put the baby back into the holder on her back and joined her partner. As soon as she rejoined the battle, the bomber stopped. He seemed to be debating what to do, whether he should continue to fight them or go back to his mission. Evening up the odds of two against one, he smirked before pulling out a handful of bombs and tossing them at the heroes.

Without hesitation the two twirled their weapons in front of them to act as shields as the bombs exploded against their weapons. By the time the smoke cleared the Bomber was already out of sight.

"Where do you think he went?" Chat asked.

"Where is the one place in Paris with the biggest collection of artwork that someone like him might want to destroy?" Ladybug replied to his question with one of her own, already having an idea about where the Bomber was headed.

Chat thought about it for a couple of seconds before his eyes went wide. "The Louvre!"

Ladybug patted his head in praise, she could have sworn he made a purring sound as she did so, then went back into action as she hooked her yo-yo onto a building and started to head towards the museum.

As the two flew across the rooftops Emma let out a little giggling sound. Chat looked at her and smiled, then turned to Ladybug.

"So," he asked "what's your little bug's name?"

"Chat!" She chided him, annoyed with both the baby and all topics related to it. " _Now_ is not the time for this, we have more important things to worry about."

He pouted from being scolded by his Lady. "You'll tell me later then, right?"

"Maybe," she said to get him to stop asking questions.

They made it to the museum and wasted no time in entering. The Louvre was already closed for the day, but the giant hole blasted in the wall showed that the Bomber didn't seem to care about that fact. They entered through the hole he had made and ran down the halls until they finally caught up with him. He wasn't hard to find, they just had to follow the trail of blown up paintings.

"We re- _fuse_ to let you get away with any of this!" Chat pointed his clawed finger at the enemy.

Ladybug decided to call upon her Lucky Charm, they needed to end this battle quickly before her baby caused any more distractions.

A little red box with black dots fell from the sky and into her hands. She peeked inside of it and sighed at the contents. Nails, what was she supposed to do with those?

"Sticking nails into bombs, that idea sounds like a _blast_." Chat commented.

"Just spare me some time to think," she told him.

Giving her a bow, he made his way across the room to attack the Bomber. However, the enemy didn't seem to care about Chat as he dodged the cat's attacks and focused his attention on Ladybug, probably knowing that she was now more of a threat since she had used Lucky Charm.

While dodging Chat, he continued to launch bomb after bomb at her. Ladybug groaned in annoyance and she used her yo-yo to deflect them while trying to come up with a way to use the nails. She didn't think things could get any worse, but that wasn't until the devil's spawn, known as Emma, began to cry again.

"You can't be serious!" She glanced back at the baby that didn't know how to shut up! With one hand still spinning her yo-yo around to deflect the bombs, she used her other to unstrap the carrier off of her. "I can't deal with you right now. Chat!" She called, getting her partner's attention. "Heads up!"

Before the cat hero could be given any more of a warning, she flung the baby holder, with a wailing Emma still inside of it, at her partner who frantically had to race forward a bit in order to catch it and not let the baby collide with the floor.

"What do you want me to do with her?" He called back.

"I don't care, do anything, just make her stop crying!" Ladybug shouted back at him while keeping her gaze fixed on the enemy in front of her. "I already fed her not too long ago so something else is bothering her."

Chat stared at the crying baby in his arms. "Uh, there, there Little Bug," he had no clue what to call her since Ladybug had yet to tell him her name, "everything will be alright."

He bounced her a couple of times and her crying immediately stopped. Well, that was easier than expected.

By the time he looked back to Ladybug, the Bomber was pinned to the floor by his clothing with the nails. Ladybug reached into his pocket and drew out his sculpting tool, which she easily snapped in half.

She finished the job by purifying the possessed butterfly and releasing the swarm of ladybugs to fix all the damage that the Bomber had done. When she was finally finished she turned towards Chat who gave her a smile and held up a happy Emma.

"How did you get her to stop crying so fast!" She asked in awe as she made her way over to them. It took her ages to get the brat to stop crying, yet he had gotten her to stop in less than a minute. Did he and Adrien have some kind of secret trick that she didn't know about?

Her and Chat exchanging a brief fist bump before turning back to the baby.

He shrugged in response to her question. "I just rocked her a couple of times and she stopped."

Ladybug stared accusingly at the baby in Chat's arms. "Is it me, are you purposely a pain only for me?"

Chat flashed Ladybug a smirk. "Maybe it means she wants me to be her papa." With a little eyebrow wiggle he added, "so, what do you say?"

Ladybug scoffed and took her baby back from him before pushing him away playfully. "In your dreams."

The beeping of her miraculous reminded her that she had to be going, Chat had time to spare since he hadn't used Cataclysm, but she didn't. She turned to leap away but was pulled back by her partner.

"Can you at least tell me your baby's name?"

"Why does it matter to you?" She asked and was met with warm smile, and if she didn't know any better she could have sworn there was a blush peeking out from under his mask.

"I just want to know what kind of name my Lady would choose for her daughter."

Ladybug sighed, she didn't see the harm in telling him the baby's name, it's not like it would reveal anything about her, right?

"Her name's Emma," she said.

Chat's mouth hung open as Ladybug turned away from him. Was he hearing things straight? Emma? That was his "daughter's" name. He watched in awe as his Lady leapt off into the night, a giant smile plastered on his face. They had the same doll and had chosen the same name, didn't that mean they were meant to be together?

He really envied whoever her partner for this assignment was.

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 **I hope you enjoyed this update!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Omg I am so, so sorry! It's been around a month since my last update! I promise you that I have not dropped or lost interest in this story! After exams I had something that's kinda similar to a co-op placement and it left me very mentally exhausted and with little free time. If I had have known how exhausting it was gonna be then I would have given you a heads up last chapter that I wouldn't be updating in a while. Well, my school stuff for the year is now all over and I can finally get back into writing my fanfics!**

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Marinette dragged herself to school, literally. With each step she took she would have to drag her feet, which she could have sworn weighed a thousand pounds, across the sidewalk. She could have cared less if her shoes were getting scuffed and scraped, all that mattered in that moment was if she could make it to school before passing out.

On a normal day, especially one after a nighttime akuma attack, Marinette would usually be late for school due sleeping in, but not that day, Emma made sure of it. In fact, Emma made sure that Marinette was up all night long. It had gotten to the point where Marinette could constantly hear the baby's crying, no longer able to distinguish her hallucinations from reality.

She stared down at the doll who now sat quietly in the car seat carrier and Marinette struggled with the overwhelming urge to toss it onto the busy street and run away without looking back. She sighed and let the thought drain from her head. Had it not been for Adrien being her partner and her actions having an influence on his mark, then she probably would have gone through with it.

Although Marinette lived really close to her school, it felt as though she had been walking for miles before she was finally able to collapse in her seat next to Alya, resting her head in her arms on the desk. It wasn't long before she felt a finger poking her shoulder. Marinette turned her head slightly to see her friend staring down at her.

"Hey Marinette, how was your first nig-" Alya stopped mid-sentence and her eyes grew wide when she caught sight of Marinette's face. "Girl, you look like something straight out of a horror film!"

"Is it really that bad?" Marinette mumbled. "I didn't bother checking this morning,"

Alya went digging through her bag and pulled out a small mirror, handing it to her friend. Marinette stared back at her reflection with an expressionless face, she was too tired to make any exaggerated expressions, but on inside she could have screamed.

Alya was right when she said that she looked like something out of a horror movie, a zombie one to be exact. The whites of her eyeballs were pink and had red veins running through them. The bags under and around her eyes were so bad that it looked like she had been punched as both of her eyes were surrounded by a deep purplish brown that showed off how tired she was. Her eyes in general looked glazed over and made it seem as if she was off in her own little world, as though her brain wasn't focused on anything. She wasn't even about to start on the state that her hair was in.

Marinette groaned and plopped her head back down into her arms.

Alya offered her a smile of sympathy. "Rough night I take it." Marinette groaned again in response and Alya patted her back. "Babies are weird like that, some nights they're great while other nights can be horrendous."

"That's not it," Marinette mumbled.

"Hm?"

The dark haired girl flung herself up from the desk and stared Alya in the eyes with a serious expression on her face. "It was timed, all of it, I know it was!"

"Timed?" Alya could only blink back in confusion. "What in the world are you talking about?"

Suddenly Marinette's eyes grew wide and crazy. She whipped her head around to stare at her baby before bringing her attention back to Alya, lowering her voice to a frantic whisper as if to hide her words from the doll.

"Her timing was too perfect," she said whilst bringing her hands up to grip Alya's arms. "The second I began to doze off she would immediately start crying. There's no way she could have known when I was about to fall asleep, but she did! That's not a doll, it's a demon. It's possessed, I know it is!"

Alya gently pried Marinette's hands from her arms and gave her friend a comforting look. "Mari, don't you think you're being a little unreas-"

"I KNOW IT IS, IT HAS TO BE!" Marinette shouted, earning the duo strange looks from the rest of the class at her sudden outburst.

Alya shushed her friend and gave her a couple of comforting pats on the shoulder. "Calm down girl, you're just a little sleep deprived and it's messing with your head. Although," Alya cupped her chin in her fingers, "literally crying all night does sound a little odd. These dolls shouldn't be crying that much, heck, not even a real baby cries that much, at least not from my experience they don't. Maybe your doll is broken, you should probably tell Ms. Mendeleiev about it, she might give you a new one."

Marinette could feel the large grin forming on her face and she clasped her hands together in front of her. "Do you really think so!"

"Well yeah, if it's broken then she'll have to give you a new one. You can't do a project with a malfunctioned doll," Alya pointed out.

Marinette instantly felt her spirits rise, her mood quickly changing into one of happiness.

Now that she was in a better mood, Marinette's tiredness moved to the back of her brain and for the first time that morning she finally took in her friend's appearance. Alya looked exactly the same as she usually did, not an ounce of tiredness showed in her eyes.

"I take it your night wasn't anything like mine?" Marinette asked in awe.

"Not even close," Alya laughed, patting her baby's head, "clearly he doesn't take after his other mother."

Marinette giggled at the comment. "He's so much better than Emma, why couldn't Adrien and I have gotten little Barth…" She scrunched up her face. "Sorry, I can't remember his name."

"And I wouldn't expect you to, it's a ridiculous name to begin with." Alya stated. "I just call him Scamp, mostly because it annoys Chloe."

Marinette could feel a death glare being shot in their direction at the mention of the name and turned to find Chloe scowling at them. It was obvious that there had been an argument over the nickname, and judging from the blonde's reaction, Alya must have won.

Marinette turned back to her friend with a grin on her face. "Oh my, look at how adorable Scamp is," she cooed with humour in her voice, loud enough for Chloe to hear. The girls could only laugh as Chloe's glare intensified.

Marinette's attention was soon drawn away from her friend when she noticed Ms. Mendeleiev walk into the classroom. She quickly gathered up Emma and made her way towards the teacher as Alya gave her a thumbs up for good luck.

"Goodbye and good riddance," she whispered to the baby before straightening up to face the teacher. "Good morning Ms. Mendeleiev!" Marinette said, trying to seem as cheerful and optimistic as possible.

Ms. Mendeleiev looked up from the papers she had been unpacking to stare at Marinette. She didn't seem surprised in the least from Marinette's zombie like appearance, but then again she was probably used to seeing her students in such a state during the course of this assignment. She simply replied in her usual stiff manner.

"How can I help you Ms. Dupain-Cheng, do you have any questions about the assignment?"

"Actually, yes," Marinette held up Emma for the teacher to see. "I think my doll might be broken, she won't stop crying."

Ms. Mendeleiev sighed in annoyance, as though this was the thousandth time somebody had mentioned that to her in the past hour. Marinette didn't take her teacher's sigh and the fact that she was now rubbing her temples as a good sign.

"Ms. Dupain-Cheng," she started, "these dolls are meant to simulate the experience of taking care of an actual baby by imitating their needs and actions. Babies cry, therefore the dolls will cry."

Marinette frowned, her teacher wasn't really getting her point. "Yes," she said, "but mine cries _too_ much. She cried all night."

Ms. Mendeleiev stared down at Marinette with a firm look in her eyes. She clearly wasn't having any of it. "The point of this project is to open up the eyes of young students to the difficulties and challenges of parenthood. Now tell me, Ms. Dupian-Cheng," She began to raise her voice in annoyance, "if one day you have a child of your own, do you believe that you could just bring him or her back to the hospital simply because he or she cries too much for you to get a good night's sleep?"

The second she finished speaking Emma once again burst into a fit of wails as though the teacher's statement made her realize what her "mother" was trying to do. Ms. Mendeleiev turned away and brought her attention back to the papers on her desk, clearly done with the conversation.

"I suggest you spend less time trying to get rid of your baby and more time caring to her needs."

All eyes were on Marinette who stood at the front of the room in shock with the screaming baby in her arms. She had been so sure that Emma was broken and that she could get a new doll that her teacher's rejection was not what she expected. She couldn't possibly expect her to do this assignment with a broken doll, could she? Nobody made a sound, save for Chloe who let out a snicker which went unheard amongst Emma's cries.

"What's going on?"

The voice was barely audible over Emma, but Marinette could have recognized it anywhere and instantly turned to find a confused Adrien entering the classroom.

His gaze shifted from the Marinette standing at the front of the room with a crying Emma, to the class who stared at her, then back to Marinette and the baby.

Marinette grew flustered, unsure of what to say. "Uh…ah…" She couldn't possibly tell Adrien that she had been trying to exchange their daughter for a new baby. Not knowing what else to do, she flung out her arms, shoving the crying baby in his face.

"Crying…stop…won't!"

Adrien gave her a confused look, but it wasn't too hard to decipher what she was trying to say. He took Emma from her hands and after a couple of gentle rocks the doll went silent.

Marinette suddenly felt light headed and had to place her arms on Ms. Mendeleiev's desk to stop herself from falling over.

"Again…how…why does she stop crying for everyone but me…"

Adrien tried to comfort her, taking in her dishevelled and tired appearance. "Don't worry, you took care of her all night, I can take it from here."

He patter her shoulder and Marinette felt her heart flutter, but the moment was ruined as a commotion, which consisted mostly of screams, could be heard coming from outside. Everyone rushed to the windows to see what was going on.

"What is it, what's happening?" Marinette asked form the back of the crowd, standing on her toes to try and see overtop of all the heads in front of her.

"This doesn't make sense," Alya pondered, squeezing out from the crowd of people. Marinette looked at her curiously so she continued, holding her chin between her fingers with a confused look on her face. "It's an akuma attack, but there was just one last night. Either there's a lot of stressed out people right now or that Hawk Moth guy is upping his game."

"I've gotta go to the bathroom!" Marinette declared, deciding it best to wonder about why there was another akuma attack so soon after the last later. She turned, planning on telling Adrien to take care of Emma while she went to the bathroom, but him and their baby were already gone.

She could have sworn he had been beside her just a second ago, but now she couldn't see him at all in the classroom. Marinette snapped herself out of it, knowing she couldn't be bothered with that at the moment as she made her way out of the room.

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 **I hope you enjoyed this update! I love all your comments and found it hilarious as everyone yelled at Chat/Adrien for being so oblivious XD**

 **See you next time!**


	5. Chapter 5

**I don't know what the weather is like for you guys, but where I am it's hailing. We're halfway through May and it's hailing...**

 **Well anyways, here's chapter 5!**

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"Why am I not surprised," Ladybug stated with a bored look on her face as she watched the scene below her from atop the school roof.

The villain today called himself Dreamtime, and apparently she wasn't the only one who had a sleepless first night with their baby from Hell. This villain, who was akumatized due to his frustration from lack of sleep, had the powers to put people to sleep by shooting them with a beam from his right hand.

But that wasn't Ladybug's favourite part, no, what she loved the most about this villain was that whenever a student's doll would start crying his face would contort with rage and he would shoot a beam from his left hand, one which would vaporize the doll into nothing but tiny particles.

Ladybug really wished she could have had Emma with her, how nice it would have been to hear her baby's cries being cut short after being hit by his attack.

Normally Ladybug wasn't one to have such sadistic thoughts, but her lack of sleep was really starting to get to her and affect her thinking.

"Man, this guy is a _nightmare_."

Even with the powers of her miraculous, Ladybug's senses were still dulled from her sleep deprivation, enough to the point of not noticing Chat was with her until he finally spoke.

The two turned to look at each other and Chat was taken aback. His Lady's eyes were red and bloodshot, her hair was a mess and looked as though she had just thrown it into two sloppy pigtails without bothering to brush it. Although her face was covered by her red mask, he didn't need to see it to know of the panda-like dark circles that surrounded her eyes.

Ladybug noticed the face he was making.

"I had a rough night with my baby," she commented, "Emma refused to let me have a wink of sleep."

Chat nodded his head in the direction of the akuma.

"Just like Dreamtime I take it. Careful, you don't want to get akumatized yourself," he added jokingly.

Ladybug sighed and rested her head in her hand. "Why do I get the feeling that we're going to be seeing a lot more similar villains for the next week."

They were interrupted by a giggle and Chat reached behind him and pulled a doll from off his back. Ladybug hadn't been paying close attention to him before, but now she was able to see that he wore a baby carrier just like hers strapped to himself, and then her eyes locked onto the doll that he held. Blonde hair and blue eyes, just like Emma.

"Ladybug, meet Emma." He stated proudly. "I was hoping you would bring your Emma, maybe our daughters could be friends, or better yet, step sisters."

Ladybug ignored his last comment and the signature Chat grin that he was giving her, and instead focused on the doll.

"You weren't kidding," she commented, reaching for Emma, "she really is the same doll."

The second her hand touched the baby, Emma erupted into cries which caused Ladybug to flinch and Chat to wrap his arms protectively around his daughter.

"What did you do!" He snapped, taking a few paces back away from Ladybug with caution. It was the first time she had ever seen him recoil from her rather than try to embrace her.

"What…I didn't…nothing! I didn't do anything!" She shouted.

As soon as the distance between Ladybug and the baby was widened, Emma stopped crying. Chat quickly inspected her to see if anything was wrong.

"Emma is a very well behaved baby," he stated, eyes still searching the doll, "she wouldn't just cry without a reason."

Ladybug's stare hardened and she directed her attention towards the doll. When she opened her mouth her voice came out like a growl. "You…you…you demon! You're just like my Emma, you're doing this on purpose aren't you! There's no way you're a doll!"

"My Lady!" Chat stated in an accusing tone. "That's not how you're supposed to talk to a baby, she'll think you don't like her."

"But I don't like her," she argued, "and I've only known her for a couple of seconds!"

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of screams as more students below them were put into a deep slumber.

"We'll talk about parenting styles later, for now we need to take care of this villain," Chat said while heading out towards the akuma victim.

Ladybug grumbled something about all Emmas being the same before bounding after him.

Dreamtime's outfit was a dark navy blue and was scattered with tiny white dots which were probably supposed to represent stars. He had what looked like grey clouds covering his shoulders, waist, wrists and head.

It wasn't too hard to find the item where the akuma hid. Strapped to the villain's back was one of their school's robot dolls which had been turned a deep purple colour.

The two heroes started their attack by drawing Dreamtime's attention away from the students and towards them. They led him away from the school and onto the top of a couple of buildings nearby.

"Let's make a deal," Chat stated once the three of them were up on top of the building, "you stop putting people to sleep and we'll turn you back to normal."

Dreamtime replied by shooting a sleeping beam in his direction. Chat jumped to the side to avoid it.

"No? Don't worry, you don't have to make your decision right now, how about you _sleep_ on it."

Chat's puns weren't doing anything but make both Ladybug and Dreamtime annoyed. Emma on the other hand started giggling as if his pun was the funniest thing she had ever heard.

Dreamtime shot sleeping beams at them, to which the heroes had to act quickly to dodge.

While Chat was easily jumping out of the way, Ladybug was slowed down from her lack of sleep. Even though her miraculous gave her heightened strength and agility, it couldn't do anything to help her sleep deprived brain focus on everything that was going on.

Dreamtime, having caught on to Ladybug's more sluggish state, began directing his attacks at her. She had to mentally command herself what to do for each attack as it came her way.

Up, duck, right, left, left, duck, up.

She could see Chat behind Dreamtime, unnoticed by the villain, quietly making his way towards the doll on his back. Perhaps it was the knowledge of the battle being almost over paired with her tiredness because once she saw him her movements became slower, less focused and more clumsy.

She went to dodge another beam, but instead she tripped over the flat surface below her like Marinette would have done, and went crashing into the ground. Before she had time to react, or even realize what was going on, she was struck with one of Dreamtime's beams.

She should have been worried, but instead Ladybug felt herself being filled with a pleasant feeling of relief as her eyes closed and her body gladly accepted the chance sleep.

"Ladybug? My Lady?"

Chat had abandoned his chance to grab the doll and instead made his way over to his partner. He gripped her by the shoulders and began to shake her.

"Now's really not the time to be sleeping beauty."

His shaking became more violent, but she remained fast asleep.

"I would gladly like to play the role of prince and wake you with a kiss, but I don't think you would be too happy about that."

Dreamtime began to approach them. Chat knew that Hawk Moth was probably telling his victim to get Ladybug's earrings while she was defenseless. Chat gently placed her on the ground and stood in front of his partner in a defensive position, holding his pole up in front of him.

He had to distract Dreamtime and get him away from his Lady quickly.

Chat charged forward while holding his pole like a sword, jumping as a beam came his way, and brought his arms down, the pole colliding with Dreamtime's head.

The villain roared in anger and shot more beams at Chat. From the close distance he had to dodge more quickly to avoid getting hit.

Now that he had Dreamtime's full attention, he turned and started to make his way onto a much higher building. Chat glanced back down behind him to find that the villain had begun to follow him, but stopped and was now heading back towards Ladybug. Hawk Moth had probably yelled at him to focus on getting the earrings first and to worry about Chat later.

Chat began to panic. There was no way he would be able to reach Dreamtime before he got to Ladybug. What was he supposed to do! Had he really just failed his Lady? After all the times she had saved him, could he not save her, just once?

Suddenly Emma let out a couple of cries. Dreamtime froze, then slowly began to turn back in their direction. His face held a look of annoyance and rage. Completely forgetting about Ladybug, the villain began charging towards Chat. He held up his left hand and started shooting the baby vaporizing beams in their direction.

"Good thinking Emma!" Chat praised his daughter, to which she replied with giggles as they made their way up the taller building with Dreamtime following closely behind.

Once they were both on top of the roof Chat launched a series of attacks at Dreamtime with his pole, but had to take a couple of leaps back when Dreamtime shot out with his beams.

This wasn't working. Fighting this villain from close range was dangerous and made it hard to avoid getting hit by his attacks. Chat needed a plan. Usually he would distract the enemy while Ladybug came up with a solution, but right now it was all up to him.

As he continued to dodge the beams from a distance, he scanned his surroundings. Chat's eyes landed on a large billboard attached to the building. Calling upon his cataclysm, he coaxed Dreamtime closer to the billboard, and once the villain was in range he dragged his claws across the beams holding the board up. The beams rusted the second he touched them, however, being the hero filled with bad luck, instead of falling backwards and onto Dreamtime, the billboard fell forwards off the side of the building and onto the street below.

Chat scratched the back of his head and gave a nervous laugh as dreamtime aimed a beam in his direction. He leapt backwards to avoid the attack, but realized that he had already been at the edge of the roof and was now in the air with the road far below him. He extended his pole between the building and another one close by and stood on it as though it was a balance beam.

"How a- _mew_ sing," he taunted, "you think you can hit me."

Hs comment only angered Dreamtime further as he relentlessly began to shoot both sleeping and vaporizing beams at the smirking hero.

Chat, being ever the show off, gave both a fancy and unnecessary dodging act. He stood balanced atop his pole dodging the beams with a series of flips and acrobatics, leaping to the left and right and ending it by flipping upside down and holding himself there in a handstand while flashing Dreamtime a cheshire cat grin, something which only enraged the villain further.

Chat was about to make a pun, but was stopped just as he opened his mouth when a series of screams erupted from the crowd of people who had stopped to watch the battle below. Thinking that the people were being attacked, his eyes flashed to Dreamtime who still stood across from him, paying no attention to the civilians.

Confused, Chat looked back down to them. They were screaming and pointing at him, or rather, they were pointing just below him. Chat followed their gazes downwards, eyes widening in horror. There was Emma, his one and only "daughter," plummeting to her death.

The baby carriers that the school provided didn't have anything that went around the baby's shoulders, instead they were designed for the baby to be easily slipped inside without needing to strap them down or buckle them in. Not the best design for acrobatics and crime fighting.

Chat's breath hitched in his throat and he felt his heart clench at the sounds that Emma was making. The poor thing wasn't even unaware of the danger she was in as she let out a chorus of squeals and giggles that echoed out around her. Only his daughter would find the position she was in to be fun.

"Don't worry Emma," he called down to her, "daddy's coming!"

He immediately leapt into action, launching himself off of his pole towards her. Being much heavier than the little doll, Chat was able to quickly catch up to it and wrapped his arms around her protectively. It wasn't until he reached his free hand to his hip, gripping for his pole, when he realized that in his haste he had left it suspended between the two buildings up above.

Chat looked around him for something the grab onto, but there was nothing within his reach. Then he started to panic.

He looked over to the shorter building where his partner slept and hastily called out to her.

"Ladybug, I could really use some help!"

However, the heroine who was already sleep deprived before being hit by Dreamtime's attack, remained fast asleep.

"Like, now!" Chat let out. "I could _really_ use some help, _now_!"

Chat's attention was drawn away from his partner and was now fixed on the hastily approaching ground. There was a lot of falls and banging around that he could take with his heightened strength and endurance provided by his miraculous, but he definitely couldn't survive from this high up, or maybe he could but only after suffering serious injuries. He didn't think the situation could get any worse, but then his ring let out an all too familiar beep, letting him know there was onlyl so much time until he transformed back.

"LADYBUG!" His voice was filled with fear.

In that moment, Emma's laughs were immediately cut off and changed to a loud piercing wail. Loud enough to distract Chat from the danger he was in.

As if on instinct, Ladybug's eyes snapped open and she jumped to her feet, squeaking out Emma's name while frantically looking around her for the doll. It took a couple of moments for her brain to fully wake up as she took in what was going on. Her eyes snapped over to Chat and his baby who were growing dangerously close to the ground.

Leaping into action, she grabbed her yo-yo and launched it in his direction. The string wrapped tightly around his body and Ladybug felt her arms being yanked forward from his weight. She dug her heels into the ground and was dragged a little closer to the edge of the building until she finally came to a stop, Chat and Emma only several feet away from the pavement.

The black clad hero called up a thanks to his partner and untangled himself from her yo-yo's cord. He safely placed Emma back in her carrier and turned towards the villain who had made his way down to the streets. Ladybug landed beside him.

"Distract Dreamtime while I use lucky charm."

"With pleasure," he said and started to head off before stopping and turning back to his partner. "Oh, can you take care of Emma then, I don't want her to get hit by his vaporizing beams."

Ladybug didn't get a chance to refuse before the doll was shoved into her arms and Chat was already heading towards the villain.

"Guess I'm babysitting you," she grumbled to herself.

She had actually expected Emma to burst out crying the second she touched her, but instead the baby remained silent as if she knew crying would only divert Dreamtime's attention towards them.

Ladybug called out her signature attack, throwing her yo-yo into the air. From above her fell a red and black spotted metal garbage can lid. She caught it with one hand as the other was holding Emma.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" She asked herself.

She scanned the battle before her where Chat was taunting and teasing Dreamtime. The villain kept shooting the sleep beams at her partner who easily dodged them.

Ladybug's gaze shifted from Chat, to the beams, to Dreamtime.

She had a plan.

"Chat, heads up!" Ladybug called, tossing the garbage can lid to her partner like a Frisbee which he caught with ease. Like with most of their battles, the two didn't have to verbally communicate to know what they wanted each other to do, they knew each other well enough to know the plans they had come up with.

Chat held the lid like a shield and began charging towards Dreamtime. The villain let out a series of beams and Chat stopped, positioning the lid in front of him. The beams ricocheted off of it and headed back in the direction they came from.

Dreamtime was struck by his own attack and his eyelids slowly fluttered closed as he fell to the ground in a much needed sleep.

Chat made his way to the villain and leaned down, carefully pulling the baby off his back and smashing it, releasing the black butterfly which Ladybug quickly captured and purified. Dreamtime reverted back to his normal self but remained fast asleep.

Chat smiled as him and Ladybug did their signature fist bump. He handed her the garbage can lid which she tossed into the air, releasing millions of little ladybugs that restored all the damage Dreamtime had done; waking students up and bringing back vaporized babies.

Chat's ring started beeping and he realized that he only had a minute left until he went back to being Adrien. He gave Ladybug a hasty goodbye and launched himself onto the roof of a nearby building before heading off.

Ladybug sighed, glad that the action was finally over. She looked down at Emma who was still in her arms.

"Hopefully your daddy isn't worried about where we are. If he asks I'll just make up an excuse about taking you somewhere safe to hide."

It wasn't until Marinette was already back at school and de-transformed in the girl's bathroom when Tikki flew over to the doll.

"Marinette," she said, "isn't this Chat's Emma?"

* * *

 **Another chapter done, I hope you enjoyed it!**

 **Right now I'm currently looking for a beta reader for this story so if any of you would like to beta it send me a PM, I would really appreciate it! However, I've never had a beta reader before so I don't really know how it works.**


	6. Chapter 6

Marinette was having a panic attack inside the stall of the girl's washroom. Hands gripping her already messy hair, she stood there with trembling knees until she finally collapsed onto the toilet, unable to hold herself up anymore.

Tikki was attempting to comfort her, but Marinette's mind was elsewhere.

 _She had Chat's Emma!_

Her partner would eventually realize that his daughter was missing and go back looking for her. There was no way she could let him see her, Marinette, with his baby. Chat was oblivious to a lot of things, but he couldn't possibly be so blind as to not put the obvious pieces together and realize that she was Ladybug.

"Calm down Marinette," Tikki attempted to reassure the trembling teen, "everything will be okay. Just take deep breaths until you can finally think straight."

"R-right," Marinette replied, "deep breaths."

She proceeded to inhale a large gulp of air, then exhale a long and shaky breath. In, out, in, out. She repeated the breathing until her heart slowed its pace and she could no longer feel it hammering against her chest. With each breath her mind slowly cleared, just as Tikki had said, allowing her to think logically.

"That's right!" Marinette suddenly jumped up, startling her kwami. She knocked on her own head a couple of times in a silly gesture. "How could I be so stupid, obviously I can just turn back into Ladybug and return Emma to Chat like that."

She held up her purse and proceeded to stick her hand inside of it. "Typical Marinette," she mumbled to herself with a smile as she did so, "always being so forgetful."

"Umm, actually, Marinette…" Tikki trailed off, there wasn't any need to continue as the look on the girl's face showed that she already discovered what her kwami was about to mention.

Marinette's eyes went wide again as she rummaged her hand around her little purse frantically, as though there was some sort of secret compartment that she didn't know about. When that produced no results she held the purse upside down in front of her, shaking it violently, but nothing came out.

Tikki flew to her side and put a consoling hand on her shoulder. "We were both so tired this morning that neither of us remembered to pack any cookies." Realizing that her statement didn't do anything for helping Marinette feel any better she added, "oh, but don't worry, it's not the end of the world. You're Ladybug, you can figure out something!"

"What if…" Marinette started talking to herself, "what if I just leave Emma on a bench near the building we fought Dreamtime. That way when Chat goes back to look for her, she'll be right there."

"Marinette!" Tikki scolded. "You can't do that!"

Marinette groaned in reply. "What's wrong with my idea?"

"You can't just leave someone else's baby on a bench!"

"It's just a doll," Marinette reminded the kwami.

"Yes," Tikki said, "but what if she wasn't a doll? What if she was a real baby, would you still just leave her on a bench for her parents to find her?"

Marinette gave a long and annoyed sigh. "Noooooo…"

Tikki nodded approvingly. "You should go and try to return Emma to Chat properly. You can always tell him that you found her. Just make something up."

Marinette groaned and peeked her head out from the bathroom, but the gesture was unneeded as the hallways were already empty. School had been cancelled due to the akuma attack so everybody had already gone home.

"I guess we should head towards where the akuma attack took place then."

 **~.~.~.~.~**

"What do you mean you already ate the camembert!"

Adrien couldn't describe what he was feeling at the moment. Currently he felt a mixture of shame at himself for forgetting Emma, and anger at Plagg for being, well, Plagg. The moment he realized that Emma wasn't with him it was too late as he had already transformed back into Adrien.

He had immediately told Plagg to eat some cheese so they could transform back into Chat and retrieve Emma from a probably not too happy Ladybug, but of course, Plagg being Plagg had already eaten all the cheese he had packed.

The black kwami gave a nonchalant shrug. "I was feeling a little peckish and that camembert was calling my name, you can't blame a guy for having no self-control."

"I can and I will!" Adrien argued. "We were at only school for a couple of minutes before the akuma attack and I packed three rolls of that smelly cheese, yet you ate it at all within that time period!"

Plagg only shrugged again and said, "don't you have more important things to worry about?" He was purposely trying to direct the young teen's attention away from him, and it seemed his plan had worked as Adrien's head shot away from Plagg and stared at the door leading out of the boy's bathroom.

 _Emma!_

How was he supposed to get her back as Adrien?

"I had one job," He groaned, head resting in his hand, " _one job._ All I had to do was look after a doll, easy right? But what did I do, I went ahead and _lost_ her!"

"Technically you didn't lose her," Plagg commented, "she's with Ladybug."

Adrien shot his kwami a glare, clearly not wanting his input. "I don't know where Ladybug is, hence I don't know where Emma is. If you ask me, this is no different than losing her!" Adrien paused for a moment before his eyes widened with realization. "Oh God, what am I supposed to tell her mother? What will Marinette think of me? My first day with the responsibility of taking care of our daughter and I left her with a stranger!"

Plagg snorted. "Ladybug is hardly a stranger, everybody in Paris knows who she is."

"True," Adrien replied, "but I can't exactly tell Marinette that that her daughter is with Ladybug. Marinette is smart, there's no doubt she would be able to put the pieces together and realize that I'm Chat Noir."

"Well there's no point moping around about it," Plagg stated, "all you can really do now is try to find Ladybug or get me some more camembert."

Adrien sighed in agreeance. "I guess you're right. The best place to look first would be where Ladybug and I battled Dreamtime."

He started to exit the bathroom, but quickly flung himself back inside.

"What's wro-"

"Shhh!" He shushed his kwami before opening the door a crack and peeking out. "What's Marinette doing here?"

Plagg poked his head out from the boy's shirt. Just as Adrien had mentioned, down the hall and facing away from the bathroom was none other than Marinette. She was clearly carrying something, but Adrien couldn't make out what it was. He assumed that she must have forgotten something when evacuating the school during the akuma attack and had probably come back to retrieve it.

Adrien let out a sigh of relief as the dark haired girl made her way down the hallway and eventually turned the corner, leaving him and Plagg alone.

Adrien stepped out from the bathroom. "Marinette is probably heading towards the front doors, so we'll take the back exit.

"That's not very nice," Plagg chided amusingly, "avoiding your fake wife."

Adrien resisted the urge to flick the little pest and began making his way towards the school's back doors, explaining his reasons to the kwami.

"I can't exactly face Marinette at the moment. I'm supposed to be taking care of Emma right now, how am I supposed to explain her absence?"

"I dunno," Plagg shrugged, "tell her you left the doll in the library or something."

"What kind of father leaves his daughter in the library!"

"What kind of father leaves his daughter with another woman?"

Plagg smirked as Adrien let out a sigh.

"I can't argue you on that one."

 **~.~.~.~.~**

"What's Adrien doing here!"

Marinette had been heading towards the school's back exit because it was closer to the spot where her and Chat had battled Dreamtime, but just as she was about to turn around another hallway she caught sight of an all too familiar blonde headed boy.

"I don't understand why we're avoiding him," Tikki commented, poking her head out of Marinette's purse as the girl waited for Adrien to leave the hallway.

"Are you kidding Tikki? How am I supposed to explain this," she waved Chat's Emma in front of the kwami, "to Adrien!"

Marinette went back to the task at hand. She never would have thought that trying to exit her school would be so difficult, it was as though Adrien was around every corner she turned.

"What's up with him!" Marinette finally muttered after hopefully avoiding Adrien's gaze yet again. "It's as though he's everywhere! Why is he even at school right now?"

 **~.~.~.~.~**

"Why is Marinette everywhere!" Adrien silently hissed to himself as he ducked around yet another corner, trying to escape Marinette's view. "Why doesn't she just go home already instead of wandering the halls?"

He turned to take another hallway route which also led to the back doors. He made his way around a couple more corners until the school doors were in sight. Just a little bit further and he would be home free.

This is, until he heard shuffling.

Adrien moved his gaze away from the doors and towards the hallway opposite of him.

For a brief moment wide bluebell eyes locked on with his green ones, each staring back at one another. It was cut short, however, as Adrien flung himself back around the corner he had come from, heart throbbing in his chest. He could have sworn she saw him, but when he dared a peek around the corner Marinette was gone.

Maybe she didn't see him, maybe she was looking at something beside him and missed him altogether. Adrien didn't care, now was his chance. He didn't know if she had left the school or gone down another hallway, but either way he wasn't letting this chance pass him by.

It was now or never.

Gathering all his strength, Adrien pushed himself down the hall in a full out sprint towards the exit. In an instant he was out the doors and racing across the school yard towards the streets where the akuma battle was fought.

Adrien spared a glance behind him to make sure that Marinette wasn't on his tail, but in that brief moment when his attention was behind him, Adrien ended up colliding into something, or rather, someone. Whoever it was he rammed into, they let out a startled squeak

Adrien scratched the back of his head, a light blush of embarrassment tinting his cheeks as he kept his gaze focused on the ground. "Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going."

"No, that's ok, neither was I."

Adrien's eyes widened; he recognized that voice. He shot his head up only to find himself staring at the one person he didn't want to see at the moment, her name escaping his lips.

"Marinette!"

His eyes traveled lower to where her arms were.

"…and Emma?"

* * *

 **Sorry there wasn't a new chapter last week, I was a little busy, but I hope you enjoyed this update!**


	7. Chapter 7

Marinette froze, the overwhelming feeling of being caught red-handed flooded through her entire being as her stomach twisted in knots. Although she had only frozen for the briefest of moments, to her it felt like an eternity.

She had been caught with Chat's baby, and by Adrien of all people!

What would he think? Would he find out she was Ladybug?

Her nervousness however was short lived as common sense took over her frantic mind, suddenly giving her the urge to slap herself for being so absurd. In fact, she almost did slap herself, raising her hand halfway to her head before quickly lowering it as she caught sight of Adrien's confused face.

Of course he didn't know she had Chat's Emma. There was no way Adrien would know what Chat's baby looked like, much less that her name was Emma or that she was currently in the care of Ladybug. He had probably seen the doll and instantly assumed it was _their_ Emma.

Marinette couldn't help but stifle a laugh at how ridiculous she had been as she waved him off.

"This isn't Emma."

"Are you sure?" Adrien asked, studying the doll closely. "She looks like Emma…she looks a lot like Emma. Where did you get her?"

Marinette started to panic, she hadn't thought up an excuse as to why she was carrying around a random baby.

"O-of course I'm sure," she stuttered. The name Emma kept catching her off guard. She knew that Adrien was referring to their Emma, but whenever he said the name she couldn't help but associating it with him knowing that it was Chat's Emma.

"This baby…" Marinette paused, trying to quickly come up with an excuse. Suddenly her eyes lit up as though a light bulb had just appeared over her head. "This baby is one of the ones that had been vaporized by the akuma! The parents must have left before the Dreamtime was defeated." Just as an extra precaution to ensure he wouldn't figure anything out, she added, "and it's a boy! I already checked, so it's definitely not Emma. There's only about four different doll designs, so the probability of him looking like Emma is pretty high."

She let out a nervous laugh, hoping Adrien would believe her. When the questioning look on his face changed into one of acceptance, she decided to continue.

"Her-HIS parents will probably soon realize that the akuma attack is over and come back looking for him, so I had decided to keep him safe until they show up."

Adrien nodded. "You're so kind Marinette, he's not even your doll yet you're taking care of him." He flashed Marinette a smile that made her face grow hot with a blush. "I really admire that about you."

Marinette's eyes darted away from his radiating smile, trying to focus on anything so she could continue to have a civil conversation with him without turning into a stuttering mess.

Eyes moving about all over the place, they soon landed on the baby carrier that he wore where Emma was safely tucked inside. That is, where Emma _would_ be safely tucked inside had she actually been there.

"Umm, Adrien?" Marinette asked, completely forgetting about his previous smile. He regarded her curiously and she motioned her finger towards the empty baby carrier that he wore on his back. "Where's Emma?"

Now it was Adrien's turn to grow flustered, and for the first time ever, it was as though they had swapped personalities. Marinette was calm and composed while Adrien fidgeted on the spot, his mind racing back and forth.

"I…she…I…" he stuttered before shouting out the first lie that popped into his mind, "I left her in the library!"

There was a silence between them after that. Marinette stared back at him confused while Adrien mentally called himself a series of downgrading names for saying something so stupid. He obviously couldn't just _tell_ Marinette that Emma was with a girl he only knew the alter ego of and not her true identity, but still, did he have to say the absurd excuse that Plagg had given him!

Marinette on the other hand was contemplating how to reply. At first she just wanted to say "oh, ok," but figured that sounded too much like she didn't care about where Emma was. Well, she _didn't_ really care about where Emma was, but she didn't want Adrien knowing that. She had to at least _act_ like a decent mother in front of him.

Marinette opted for going with a standard reply and asked him the simple question, "why?"

Adrien twiddled with his fingers as he came up with an excuse on the spot, silently apologizing to Marinette for the continuous stream of lies he was feeding her.

"I hid in the library during the akuma attack because I thought it would be safer for Emma. After waiting a while I wanted to come out and check to see if it was over and decided it would be better if I left Emma there, you know, in case the akuma was still outside."

At first Marinette seemed to buy his excuse, nodding her head in agreement, but then she froze for a couple of moments and soon after her face turned into one of fear.

Was Marinette scared about Emma's wellbeing? After all that doll had put her though, of course she wasn't. But Adrien's excuse helped her come up with an excuse for herself.

"You left Emma, _all alone_ , in the library! What if she gets hungry, what if she cries? Who knows what could happen!" Her voice rang out in mock agony. "Here, you take this baby and wait for his parents to show up looking for him, I'll go get Emma from the library."

Before Adrien knew what was happening, Emma 2.0 was being shoved into his arms and Marinette was sprinting away from him towards the school.

His mouth gaped open like a fish as he tried to make sense of what just happened. Marinette on the other hand was grinning from ear to ear. This was the best thing she had thought of all day. Adrien could be the one to give Emma back to Chat, that would solve her problem of explaining to the kitty why Marinette of all people had his baby.

Adrien looked from the doll, then to Marinette's receding figure, then down to the doll, and finally back to Marinette.

"W-wait, Marinette!" He called out to her, but the girl either didn't hear him or chose to ignore his desperate plea.

Emma wasn't in the library and there was no doubt that Marinette was going to figure that out herself once she got there.

Adrien started to chase after her, but remembered the baby in his arms. Looking around frantically he spotted a bench near him and carefully place the doll on it. He was about to start after Marinette again when a curious voice called out to him.

"You're really going to leave her here?"

Adrien looked down to find Plagg's head sticking out of his shirt staring up at him.

The blonde boy sighed. "I don't have any choice, the parents will find him here when they come looking…probably." He paused for a moment before adding, "and he's a boy, not a girl."

"Right, right, a boy." Plagg drawled lazily, not sounding like he cared. "But like I said, are you seriously going to leave her here?"

Adrien nodded.

"Really? If that doll starts crying wouldn't you, or I mean, the parents, get a bad grade? What would Chat do in this situation?"

Adrien grimaced. Why did Plagg even care about what happened with the doll, he never cared about anything except cheese. He waited a couple of moments before sighing. "Chat would take the doll with him."

He picked up Emma 2.0 and stared at him. "But I don't get why I have to take care of a baby that's not even mine."

Plagg let out a little snicker causing Adrien to flash him a confused glare.

"What's so funny?"

The black kwami waved him off. "Nothing, nothing. You two are just so clueless, it's funny to watch."

Adrien shook his head and opted for ignoring his kwami who never made sense half of the time. Placing Emma 2.0 in empty baby carrier strapped to his back, he quickly hurried after Marinette. He didn't have much choice considering the circumstances. He would have to tell her the truth, or at least, part of the truth.

Rushing into the school he flew down the hallways until he reached the library doors which were already open wide.

Marinette stood alone in the center of the empty room, the only blonde hair blue eyed doll within any vicinity of them being the Emma clone currently tucked against his back.

"Marinette, I can explain!" He shouted out, but he never got the chance to however as Marinette turned around to face him, eyes wide with disbelief. She opened her mouth and her voice echoed out as the only sound in the empty library.

"Someone stole Emma."

* * *

 **I'm so sorry for how long it took between this chapter and the last! Life has just getting in the way recently.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	8. Chapter 8

Adrien didn't know how to respond. He let his mouth hang open as he tried to come up with something to say while staring back into Marinette's shocked bluebell eyes.

Before he knew what he was doing, he nervously let himself give he a slight nod and muttered "o-oh, I see…"

He didn't know why he kept prolonging his lies to Marinette. This was his first time being partnered with his shy classmate and he wanted to use this opportunity to strengthen their friendship, but relationships filled with lies never end well.

He mentally groaned to himself, if only he had told her the truth, or most of the truth, from the start. Why didn't he just tell her that he left Emma with a friend during the akuma attack? But it was too late for that, there's no way he could tell her now.

Marinette on the other hand was in complete shock, but for a much different reason than what Adrien thought. Her first thought which coursed through her brain was 'why would _anyone_ want to steal Emma?' Out of all the dolls they could have chosen to steal, why would they want the demon baby? Her second thought passed by with a brief feeling of excitement at not having to deal with both her Emma _and_ Chat's Emma at the same time, but that feeling quickly faded when she realized that this situation could possibly jeopardize both her and Adrien's grades on this assignment.

"We should look for her" Marinette blurted out "… _I guess."_ She added the last part under her breath.

"R-right." Adrien said and they started to make their way out of the school.

Once they were outside Marinette started to look around, not sure which direction they should go.

"Where do you suppose we should start looking?" Marinette asked, but Adrien could only shrug. What was he supposed to say, 'let's find someone who is akumatized and wait for Ladybug to show up?'

"Well," he started," all we really can do at the moment is walk around and keep our eyes out for anyone who has a blonde haired, blue eyed doll, right?"

Marinette sighed. "I guess you're right, that's really our only option at the moment."

"And while we're at it we can also look for his parents." Adrien held up Chat's Emma.

Marinette nodded and gave him an uneasy smile. She could only hope that Chat retrieved Emma in his civilian form rather than as Chat Noir, she had no clue how she would explain why she had Chat's baby to Adrien, or explain to Chat why she had his Emma instead of Ladybug.

The two began walking through the streets of Paris in silence. Neither of them could deny the awkward tension between them, it was just like when Adrien went to Marinette's house to practice for the video game tournament.

Adrien was the first to speak up, trying to start a conversation. He had decided that it was his job to try and bond more with Marinette.

"So, what should we call him?"

"Hmm?"

"The baby," he said looking down at Chat's Emma, "we should probably call him something while we've got him."

"Oh," Marinette smiled and placed a finger to her lip as she thought of a new name for Emma. "How about…Louis…?"

Adrien laughed and held up Emma. "Louis? Well, he does look exactly like Emma, and Emma's name was originally Louis. Sounds good to me!"

Marinette leaned in towards Emma. Chat's Emma had been almost as big of a pain to her as her Emma has been and as pathetic as it sounded, she wanted to get revenge on at least one of the dolls. With a taunting voice she smirked and said, "how about it, _Louis_ , do you like your new name?"

The moment the words left her mouth, Emma erupted into a shrill, ear-piercing cry. Marinette leapt back, startled by the sudden outburst, and held her hands up in front of her.

"I didn't touch him, I swear!"

Adrien chuckled. "Don't worry, I'm sure he's just hungry or something."

He reached into the bag of Emma's stuff and pulled out a bottle. He tried feeding it to the doll, but nothing happened.

"Hmm," putting the bottle away, Adrien looked around until he spotted a bench a little ways off. He motioned for Marinette to stay where she was. "Wait here, I'm just going to try and change his diaper, hopefully that'll work."

Hurrying over to the bench, he gently placed the doll down and rummaged through his bad for one of Emma's diapers. Once he was all set, he undid the velcro straps holding Louis' diaper in place and took it off.

Adrien froze.

"What's the matter, don't know how to change a baby's diaper?" Plagg flew out from his shirt and stared from the doll to Adrien.

"Louis…" Adrien pointed at the doll, "Louis is a…girl? But didn't Marinette already say that she already checked the gender?"

Plagg lazily looked down at Emma. "Hmm, it seems so. Maybe Marinette lied to you."

"No, Marinette wouldn't lie, she wouldn't have any reason for lying about this in the first place." Adrien couldn't make any sense of what was going on, "But still… why else would she tell me that Louis is a boy?

"Hmm, I wonder," Plagg drawled with a smirk. "Maybe she's hiding something."

Adrien's eyes grew wide as realization struck him. "No, of course not, it can't be…can it?" He turned to Plagg, face full of seriousness. "Plagg, you don't think that maybe, just maybe, there's a possibility that Marinette…"

Plagg leaned in close. "So, did you finally figure it out, that Marinette-"

"Doesn't know what a boy looks like!" An explosion of pink spread across Adrien's face as he pointed to the spot inbetween his legs, "You know, down there?"

Plagg's eyes grew wide in shock as he stared back dumbfounded at the human fidgeting uncomfortably before him. He straightened himself, took a long and deep breath, then erupted into a series of loud strained laughs that echoed through the little clearing.

Adrien quickly looked behind him and caught Marinette's eye as she gave him a curious look, obviously confused about the sound. He quickly whipped his head back around, hoping she didn't catch sight of Plagg or his bright red face.

He grabbed Plagg and covered the kwami's mouth with his hands, able to feel the vibrations from his laughter on them. As a cover up, Adrien let out a couple of fake laughs, loud enough to cover up Plagg's obnoxious laughter.

"HA HA HA, OH LOUIS YOU'RE SO FUNNY, HA HA HA…" He then brought his hands up to his face and hissed for Plagg to shut up.

After what felt like forever the kwami's hollering laughter was reduced to snickers and he clutched his stomach after straining it due to all the laughing.

"Are you done?" Adrien whispered.

Plagg nodded, let out a couple more stifled laughs, nodded again, then smiled a sly cat-like smile. "You know what kid, I think you may be on to something. Maybe Marinette _doesn't_ know what boys look like down there." He paused briefly before adding with a snicker, "You should show her yours, just so she kno-"

Adrien cut off the annoying cat with a swat and stuffed him into his shirt.

"Just stay here and be quiet."

Plagg grumbled to himself but obeyed.

Adrien snatched up Louis and hurried back to Marinette.

"S-sorry it took so long."

Marinette paused gave him questioning glance. "Is everything alright, you were making a lot of noise over there?"

"Y-yeah!" Adrien turned away hoping Marinette wouldn't see his face as it turned bright red again after remembering the reason as to why Plagg had been laughing so loudly in the first place. He definitely wasn't going to question Marinette on something like that. "A-anyways, we should get going. Emma is probably getting worried about where we are right now."

"What's the rush?" Marinette asked. "I'm sure she can't even tell the difference between us and whoever it is that took her."

"No," Adrien stopped to look at Marinette with an odd form of parental pride in his eyes, as though Emma was actually his daughter, "that's not true at all. Emma is a smart baby, she knows _exactly_ who her parents are."

"O-okay," was all she could say in reply. She was starting to get the feeling that Adrien was taking this assignment a little too seriously. But then again, she couldn't really argue with his point since Emma was a little demon child who seemed to give her, and only her, a hard time.

Ok, so maybe they were _both_ taking it a little too seriously.

The two continued to walk around the city aimlessly, both focused on finding Emma and searching for Louis' parents. Marinette could only imagine how frantic Chat would be about getting his Emma back while Adrien was worried over how mad Ladybug would be over him ditching her with his baby.

Neither of them had any idea where to start looking, and while they were in each other's company they weren't able to find a way to break apart and transform into their hero identities in order to contact their partners.

But even so, neither of them were able to transform yet until their kwamis had gotten something to eat. Maybe if they could recharge their kwamis then they could make an excuse to get away from one another.

Adrien scratched the back of his head, not sure how to approach the topic. "So, I'm actually starting to get a little bit hungry, how about you?"

Marinette jumped in surprise at his comment, it was as though he had read her mind.

"I was just about to say the same thing!"

"Great!" Adrien smiled, this was the perfect opportunity, "then what do you say we grab something quick to eat before continuing our search?"

Marinette nodded happily in agreement. This would be her chance to get Tikki some food.

"So," Adrien asked, "what are you in the mood for?"

"Cookies," she smiled, "some nice chocolate chip cookies. What about you?"

"Camembert."

Silence.

"Camembert?"

"Yeah."

"…camembert?

"Mhmm."

"Just camembert?"

He nodded.

Marinette gave him a weird look. "You're saying you want to eat a block of camembert, no crackers or anything, just the cheese?"

He nodded again, cheeks lightly tinted with pink embarrassment. Why did Plagg have to like camembert if all things! Now what did Marinette think of him? She didn't think he was weird or anything, did she? Was she going to comment that he stunk like the cheese because he knew he did, ever since Plagg entered his life everything he owned smelled like it.

Much to his surprise however, Marinette began to giggle.

"That's a little odd to have for a snack, but I guess I'm not one to judge since I eat some pretty weird things as well."

Adrien's worry about what Marinette thought of him quickly vanished and was replaced with a large smile. Now that he thought about it, he didn't even know why he was worried in the first place.

Marinette was the kindest, sweetest and most understanding person he knew, of course she wouldn't think badly of him for something little like this. People such as Chloe would for sure criticize him for it, but not Marinette. She was the kind of friend he had always dreamed of having, and now more than ever he was overjoyed at finally being able to have the chance to spend more time with her to deepen their friendship.

"So, what do you say?" Marinette interrupted his thoughts. "How about we grab some cookies and camembert to eat before continuing our search?"

He flashed her a smile that thousands of girls would die to see and held out his arm for her to take.

"Shall we go, puur-incess?"

* * *

 **Chapter 8 is finally finished, it took me a little longer than usual. I continue to reflect myself onto Plagg as his reactions are pretty much how I would have reacted to everything!**

 **I really hope you enjoyed this update and that it made you laugh, and once again, thank you all for being so understanding with my inconsistent update schedule!**


	9. Chapter 9

"What?"

"What!"

"Did you just call me-"

"No!" Adrien shot his arms up in front of him and began waving them around frantically.

A cold sweat was starting to form on his forehead, realizing that he had let his Chat out the moment the words had left his mouth. What was he supposed to do, what was he supposed to say? The only thing he could think of was to stare back at her shocked expression in complete fear.

Marinette on the other hand was wide-eyed. Never had she ever expected those words to come from Adrien's mouth. 'Puur-incess,' wasn't that Chat's nickname for her? The name itself sounded a lot more natural coming from the flirty Chat rather than her sweet and innocent Adrien.

"I-I said, shall we go, Marinette."

"No, you didn't," she replied flatly.

What was up with Adrien, she knew for a fact that he just referred to her by the nickname Chat had given her as Marinette the one time they worked together. But what was confusing her the most at that moment was Adrien's reaction. It was almost as if he was...was... _hiding something_.

"Ok, you caught me," he stuttered, straightening up as his body visibly calmed down, "it looks like the cat's out of the bag. I haven't told anyone else this before, you're going to be the first to know. You have to promise not to tell anyone, ok?"

Marinette nodded.

Adrien took a deep breath. "You see, I'm actually..."

Marinette cocked her head, waiting for what he would say next.

"I'm actually a really big fan of Chat Noir!" He blurted out.

"Oh, so that's it." Marinette replied, seemingly unimpressed as she turned her head to the side.

He almost missed it, almost. The very obvious yet familiar roll of her eyes which she tried to hide by turning her head. It looked out of place coming from Marinette, but at the same time so very normal. But where, where had he seen it before?

"Just as a word of advice," Marinette interrupted his thoughts, "Chat Noir probably isn't the best role model for you to look up to."

Adrien stiffened, getting a little defensive.

"Why not? He really cares about the people of Paris and does everything he can to help them."

His words came out a little more demanding that he wanted, but Marinette didn't seem to notice.

She waved her hand. "That's not what I meant. Those qualities of him are admirable, but the rest of him..." she trailed off.

"The rest of him what?"

"Well, to be frank, he can be pretty annoying."

Adrien held back a cry of pain as Marinette's words shot into his heart like an arrow.

"A-annoying how...?" He asked, gripping his wounded chest.

"For starters," Marinette drawled, holding up her fingers as she numbered off her points, "he's so cocky and full of himself, and his flirting is irritating."

Adrien could feel two more stabs of pain slice through him. Was Marinette trying to crush his spirit? Since when did she hold such a resentment towards Chat anyway? From what he could recall, she was barely able to contain her excitement when she got the chance to work with him during the Evillustrator incident.

"And then there's his puns-"

"Wha- hey! What's wrong with his puns!" Adrien cut her off. "I think they're hilarious!"

Marinette rolled her eyes again, this time not even trying to cover up the action.

"If by hilarious you mean lame, then I agree."

Where was all of this sass coming from? Adrien had never seen Marinette talk this way to anyone other than Chloe, and himself when they first met, but that was justified due to their little misunderstanding with the gum.

"You talk as if you know Chat fairly well, how many times have you met him again?"

"Err, uhh, o-only a couple, I only, uh, know what Alya tells me about him, that's all." Marinette tried to stutter her way out of his question. She had gotten so caught up in the moment that she didn't realize how familiarly she was speaking about Chat. "You know what, I'm starting to get really hungry now, l-let's go get those cheese and cookies!"

With that, she turned on her heels and began making her way towards the nearest grocery store. Adrien decided to drop the conversation as well and follow her, his first priority was getting Emma back.

 **~.~.~.~.~**

At the store the duo split up shortly so Marinette could grab a couple of cookies from the bakery section and Adrien could pick up his wheel of camembert from the dairy aisle. They met back up together at the front of the store after paying for their food.

Marinette bit into one of her cookies and dropped the rest of the cookies into her purse.

"I'm saving them for later," she informed Adrien as she did so.

After finishing up her cookie, which ddin't compare at all to the ones her father made, Marinette glanced curiously at Adrien who had stuffed his wheel of camembert into his pocket.

"Didn't you say you were hungry?" She asked.

"O-oh, right! I did say that didn't I..."

Adrien pulled the camembert out from his pocket and stared down at it in his hand, then up to Marinette who stared at him with big blue eyes, curious as to what was wrong.

"Actually," he started, trying to quickly think of something on the spot, "some people get grossed out when I eat camembert straight from the box. I was just going to wait until I was alone to eat it."

"I won't mind, you look good eating anything." Marinete froze"Or I mean, you look good doing anything - no wait, that's not what I meant! I-I!" Marinette slapped her red face at her accidental screw up, but Adrien didn't take notice of it, only hearing her say that she didn't mind him eating the cheese.

He slowly opened the box and looked down at the contents, the strong smelly scent already drifting up into his nose. He glanced up to Marinette again, then looked back down to the box and picked up one of the triangles, hovering it in front of his mouth.

 _'You can do it,'_ he motivated himself.

Fighting the urge to gag, Adrien placed the entire triangle of camembert into his mouth, assuming it would probably be best to eat the entire thing at once. He slowly started to chew, the flavour of the cheese invading his taste buds. With each bite he grew more and more nauseous.

"Are you ok?" Marinette asked. "You look a little pale?"

Adrien reluctantly nodded and mumbled around the mushed up cheese in his mouth. "I'm just... _really_ enjoying this camembert..."

He tried to forcefully swallow it but every time his throat would reflexively clench up and make him gag. In the end he had to settle for swallowing the cheese in small portions. His stomach hated him at that moment, threatening to release the camembert back up from the way it came in.

With one final shiver, he managed to get the rest of the camembert down his throat, letting out a shuddered sigh of relief before running back into the store to buy a bottle of water and down the entire thing in one sitting.

"Are you sure you're ok?" Marinette asked again once he was finished. Adrien only nodded in reply, not wanting to torture Marinette with his horrible camembert breath.

He stuffed the remainder of the roll of camembert in his pocket. "I'll save the rest for later," he muttered.

"Well, now that we're both full we should probably get back to searching for Emma." Marinette said.

Her comment jolted Adrien back to reality, forgetting his upset stomach and nodding.

"We haven't had much luck looking for her, maybe we should split up."

Marinette laughed. "It's like you just read my mind. I'll, uh, go this way." She pointed to her left.

"Right, then I'll go in the opposite direction." Adrien said.

The two headed off in their respective directions saying they would call one another if they found her, and each of them turned off onto either side of the store.

Marinette opened her purse. "Ok Tikki, it's time to transform and finally give Chat his Emma back."

"Wait, but Mari-" The little kwami didn't have the chance to finish her sentence before Marinette transformed.

Ladybug took out her yo-yo and dialed Chat who answered after the first ring.

"I was just about to call you, My Lady, I assume this is about Emma."

"Right, you need to take her off my hands quickly, she's been nothing but a pain." As she spoke, Ladybug leapt onto the balcony of the store and then onto the roof. "I'm at-"

She paused when Chat jumped onto the roof just moments after her, his face looking as surprised as she was. His shock, however, quickly turned into a grin.

"This must be fate, us both happening to be at the same place at the same time."

Ladybug ignored his comment and continued. "I'm busy at the moment, so take Emma quickly."

There was silence for a couple of seconds as Chat looked around.

"So, where is she?"

"What do you mean whe-" Ladybug stopped mid sentence and smacked her face, suddenly realizing what Tikki had been trying to tell her before transforming. She forgot Emma with Adrien!

"Sorry Chat, I forgot her with somebody else."

Chat jumped back, fear on his face. "You left her with a stranger, what if they try to steal her, or harm her, or-"

"Calm down," Ladybug cut him off with a roll of her eyes, "that person won't do anything to hurt your _doll_."

A little giggle sounded from behind her partner and Ladybug moved a little to the side to peer behind him. She hadn't noticed before but he was wearing a baby carrier with a doll inside.

She pointed to the doll, saying nothing but with confusion written all over her face.

Chat looked behind him where Louis was attached to his back. The baby had been fairly quiet recently so he hadn't noticed that he was still carrying her when he split up from Marinette.

"I'm just taking care of my friend's baby for a bit," then he added with a smirk, "I hope you're not jealous."

"I just thought that it was weird that you're taking care of someone else's baby when you can't even seem to take care of your own."

Chat clutched his heart with mock hurt. "Your words are like knives, My Lady, but apparently you can't seem to take care of my baby either."

She sighed. "Whatever, I'm going to call the person with your Emma and tell her to wait in front of the store."

"Right, then I'll have my partner for the project pick her up."

Normally the two would be more careful with their identities, but they had both had long days and knew using the excuse of having other people pick up and drop off the doll would ensure that their identities weren't discovered by one another.

The two jumped back down to their sides of the store and de-transformed. Marinette turned around the corner to wait but stopped as soon as she saw the person who walked out from around the other side of the store.

"Adrien?"

He looked up after hearing his name, green eyes filled with confusion.

"Marinette? What are you still doing here?"

"I found Louis' owner, we planned to meet here."

"What a coincidence!" Adrien exclaimed, "I found the person who has Emma and we're also meeting here."

Marinette laughed. "Wow, that really is a coincidence. Do you...do you want to wait together?"

She looked up at him with a slight blush.

"Sure," Adrien nodded.

The two sat down on a bench in front of the store together to wait.

 **~.~.~.~.~**

The sun was starting to set as the two teenagers continued to sit on the bench, talking about random topics as they waited.

"This isn't even funny anymore, it's just plain aggravating now!" Plagg hissed from around the corner of the store. "I've never seen any human so oblivious before in all my life, which is quite a long one may I add."

"Really?" Tikki piqued in from beside him. "I think it's kind of cute."

Plagg grumbled as he watched Marinette check her phone for about the millionth time and comment on how late the owner of Louis was.

"Watching them suffer used to be hilarious, but they ruined it for me, ruined it!" He glared at them for a couple more seconds and smirked. "I'm gonna tell them."

"Don't you dare!" Tikki had to grab onto his tail as he started to make his way towards the two idiots. "You have to let them figure it out on their own."

Plagg grumbled at her statement. "And how long will that take? Months? Years? Decades? At this point I'm willing to give up camembert just to finally have them figure it out!" He paused to reconsider his statement. "Ok, so maybe not camembert, but I would willingly give up cheddar!"

Tikki smiled. "They'll take however long they need."

* * *

 **I apologize profusely for such a long waiting time for this chapter to come out. School and work and life just got in the way, but exam period has started now so I have around a month of no school until the next term starts up again, giving me plenty of time to write!**

 **On another note, who else here is super pumped for the Christmas special of Miraculous Ladybug! I already know I'm gonna spend the entire day of the 11th sitting at my computer refreshing the page until the subbed episode is released.**

 **I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	10. Chapter 10

Marinette looked around the empty streets, she and Adrien were the only people in sight.

"I don't get it," she muttered, "he said we were going to meet right here so he could pick up Louis."

 _'Stupid cat, did he forget to tell his partner to come pick up Emma.'_

Adrien sighed. "The same goes for the person with Emma, why isn't her partner here already?"

He looked up to the sky, a mixture of purple and blue as the sun was almost completely engulfed by the horizon with only a sliver of its golden rays still shining through. He exhaled a long and steady breath, they had waited long enough and it was going to get dark soon. It wouldn't be safe for Marinette to wander the streets of Paris alone at night.

"I think we've been stood up." He gave her a soft smile which she responded to with a light blush, hidden by the darkness of the sky. As much as he wanted Emma back, he couldn't just wait around all night for Ladybug to show up. He would have to hope she brings Emma with her during their next patrol.

Adrien stood up and offered his hand out for Marinette to take. "What do you say, should we head back?"

She nodded and gently placed her smaller soft hand in his. With a light tug he pulled her up from the bench.

"I'll walk you home."

Marinette only nodded again, Adrien had no idea how much he was killing her at that moment. She kept her mouth shut, there was no way she was going to screw this up by blurting out something ridiculous and embarrassing herself.

Adrien smiled at the girl beside him as they walked. It was only the second day of their assignment yet he already felt as though he was getting a little friendlier with her, although her actions still confused him. Up until a few minutes ago she was fully engaged in the conversation they were having, chatting his ears off as though they were close friends, but now she was acting shy again. He never seemed to understand why she was so shy around him and only him. It didn't matter though, all he cared about was that he was getting the chance to grow a little closer to his classmate.

Before long, the two reached Marinette's bakery.

"Thanks," she mumbled, keeping her head down and trying hard not to stutter, "for walking me home."

Adrien gave her a pat on the shoulder. "It's no problem, I wouldn't want you walking home alone at this hour."

Marinette glanced to Emma who was strapped to Adrien's back. "Are you sure you're fine taking care of the doll tonight?"

He nodded and flashed her a smile. "You took care of Emma last night so it's only fair that I take Louis tonight. Besides, you look like you could really do with some sleep."

She blushed, suddenly becoming self-conscious at the obvious bags under her eyes. "W-well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then!"

Adrien waved goodbye as she entered her house.

 **~.~.~.~.~**

"I think it's dead."

"She's not dead."

"You sure about that?"

Plagg, like usual, was being a nuisance, flying around and examining Louis while insisting Adrien that he must have killed the baby.

Adrien sighed for what felt like the millionth time that night. "Yes Plagg, I'm sure that she's not dead."

"Oh yeah" The kwami challenged him. "Then why's it so quiet."

"She's just sleeping," he countered, "though she won't be soon if you keep bugging her like that!" Adrien had to get up from his computer to swat away his kwami who had started shaking the doll in an attempt to see if she was alive.

Plagg flew back, unfazed by the smack. "A baby isn't supposed to be this quiet, she hasn't cried or laughed or anything in hours."

"What do you know about babies?" Adrien asked, picking up Emma and bouncing her a little. He wouldn't admit it, but Plagg's words did make him a little uneasy, he didn't want to be responsible for breaking someone else's doll.

"I know a lot about babies thank you very much!" The kwami shot back. "Or at least more than you. I've had to put up with plenty of babies from my past Chats and trust me kid, a baby doesn't go this long without making a sound unless it's dead. I have experience."

"You have experience in killing babies!" Adrien hugged Louis close to him in a protective manner and glared at the kwami.

"Not killing!" He exclaimed, then adopted a softer non Plagg-like tone. "I have experience with…babies dying."

"So," Adrien looked solemnly at the black kwami, a melancholic expression on his face, "do you mean to say that some of the past Chats lost their children when they were still just infants?"

Plagg crossed his arms in annoyance. "Don't you go getting all sappy on me! Times were tough; weather and disease and so on, that was common in those times. But it's over and done with, everyone from back then is dead now, get over it."

He grumbled when Adrien didn't seem to cheer up. "I never should have told something like that to a sensitive person like you. Why not try thinking about all of the babies who _are_ alive."

Adrien's face brightened. "You're right, I should be grateful for the babies who are alive right now and not worry about those who died long ago." He held up Emma and started cuddling her.

"Adrien, that's a doll, it's not alive…" Plagg's words went ignored by his master who was making ridiculous cooing noises at Emma.

"You know," Adrien commented, "maybe the reason Louis isn't crying a lot is because she likes me."

Plagg felt like a lightbulb went off in his head, a feeling he wasn't used to experiencing. "Hmm, you're right. In fact, it's almost as if she recognizes you." And then he added with a snicker, "Maybe _she's_ your missing Emma."

"Don't be ridiculous Plagg, that's impossible." His suggestion was instantly shot down by Adrien. "Besides, you know Ladybug has Emma."

The kwami turned around to mutter to himself. "Impossible he says, Ladybug has her he says."

"Did you say something?" Adrien gave his kwami a look, thinking that he might be muttering about being hungry like usual.

"Nothing," he grumbled.

Placing Emma back into her baby carrier, Adrien returned to his desk and resumed what he was doing before Plagg interrupted.

"So," the kwami flew over to him, not giving his master a moment of peace, "what's so important that you were actually able to put down the doll?"

"I'm buying something," he replied, eyes not leaving the screen as he scrolled through the pages of an online shopping website, "something for Emma."

"Sounds boring."

The kwami flew away and opened up a new roll of camembert, picking up one of the delectable triangles. The intoxicating aroma alone could make his mouth water. He was about to stuff it in his mouth when his eyes trailed over to Emma and a smirk grew on his lips.

"Want some," he asked, hovering in front of the doll and holding the piece of cheese out to her, "camembert is the most delicious food in the entire world, I promise you'll love it."

Plagg gave her a smug look and snickered.

"Psych!" He stuffed the entire piece of cheese into his mouth and tried to mumble out words around it. "Bis is bewicious, poo bab oo camp haf amy!"

He flashed the doll a cheese filled mocking smile, to which she replied by letting out a shrill, screaming cry. The kwami instantly covered his ears and swallowed his mouthful of camembert.

"I take it she's not dead then."

"Plagg!" Adrien shouted and was instantly at the baby's side, trying to calm her down all the while shooting his kwami a death glare. "Now I can see why your only baby experiences involve crying, I pity all of the past Chats who had children."

"Hey," he complained, "it's not my fault dolls can't eat cheese!"

 **~.~.~.~.~**

Marinette waited for Adrien by the school gates the next morning. Alya had informed the girl that it would be the polite thing to do as he was the "father" of their "child".

Unlike yesterday, Marinette was actually at school early, wide awake and eager to start her day. As soon as she got home the night before she went straight to bed and had what she could only describe as the best sleep of her life.

Her head perked up as a familiar black car drove up and Adrien walked out.

"Hi," she greeted him.

"Morning Marinette," he gave her a little wave, "it looks like you slept well."

She nodded, then directed her attention towards his hand which was carrying something.

Noticing her confused look, Adrien smiled and held up be a brand new baby carrier, and a fancy one at that. Unlike the piece of junk provided by their school, this one had straps that wrapped around the baby's torso and went over its shoulders, securely holding it in place. Even if you flipped it upside down, your baby wasn't going anywhere. Chat's Emma was currently occupying it, tucked nicely into place.

"I thought it might be a good idea to get a new carrier, you know, just in case anything happens. I hope you don-"

"That's a great idea!" Marinette cut him off before he could finish. After Chat nearly killed his Emma the day before she had been more than a little worried that the same would happen with hers. Although none of that mattered at the moment considering she didn't even know where her baby was.

The two entered the school together but split off before entering their classroom as Adrien went to greet Nino.

In the classroom Marinette noticed Alya grinning like a maniac as she scrolled away on her phone. There was only one thing that could make Alya that excited.

"Ladyblog?" She asked, taking her seat next to her best friend.

"You know it girl!" Alya finally looked up from the screen. "The blog's been exploding with views since I uploaded some exclusive Ladybug and Chat Noir footage from yesterday."

She held out her phone and Marinette scooted in closer to get a better look. Alya pressed the play button and a video taken on a cell phone started.

"This was the clearest footage anyone was able to get amidst all of the panic," she whispered.

The video was shaky as the cameraman tried to get a good shot. Chat was atop a building battling the villain from the day before. He did a flip, going upside down, and then something small fell from his back. The camera zoomed in on it, and from the distance it looked no different than a real baby. Civilians from below began to let out screams of terror as they watched the baby fall to its death. Of course, the hero noticed this quickly and jumped down after it.

Marinette sat back in her seat, she didn't need to see the rest as she already knew what happened next. Her face grew pale as a twisting feeling began to form in her stomach, she could already guess what the "explosion of views" on the Ladyblog were about.

"Can you believe it!" Alya squealed. "Chat Noir has a baby! Half of the comments on the video are people complaining about how child services should take his baby away from him as putting it in that much danger is child abuse, and the other half are people speculating on who the mother is."

"Oh?" Marinette didn't like where this was heading.

"Pretty much everyone thinks that it's Ladybug. I didn't think it made sense at first since Ladybug was never pregnant, but if you think about it, this baby looks like it has to be at least several months old which means if Ladybug gave birth shortly before her debut as our hero, then it makes perfect sense!"

Alya continued to go on about her theories as Marinette sat there and let her face collide with the desk in front of her.

"Just great," she muttered quietly enough so that no one else could hear, "now all of Paris thinks I'm in a relationship with Chat."

Adrien made his way over with Nino. "What are you two talking about?"

"It's about Cha-"

"Nothing important!" Marinette cut her friend off before she could continue, she didn't want to hear more about Chat and Ladybug.

He didn't get the chance to question further as Ms. Mendeleiev entered the room and demanded that everyone quiet down.

 **~.~.~.~.~**

The school day was surprisingly uneventful. Emma, who sat beside Adrien the entire day, was on her best behaviour and didn't make a peep even when all of the other dolls were crying.

Partway through the day Marinette began to notice that something was bothering Adrien, he was fidgety and restless, casting glances down towards Emma. She did try to ask him about it during their second to last period, but was yelled at by the teacher.

As soon as the school day was over and everyone else began to filter out of the room, she leaned forward and asked Adrien if everything was alright.

"Actually," he replied with a glance down to Emma, "Something has been bugging me all day. I-I think we should just come clean to Ms. Mendeleiev, tell her what happened with our doll and this one."

"No, that's a bad idea, what if she takes Louis away!" Marinette frantically tried to dispel the idea from his head, if the teacher took the doll away then how was she supposed to give it back to Chat!

"Exactly, she might be able to give it back to the parents. We need to tell her."

"Wait!" Marinette shot up from her desk as Adrien got up to make his way to the front of the room where the teacher was packing up. She tried to race after him but tripped over her bag, landing face first onto the floor and hearing Emma let out a little giggle as it happened.

Adrien was already at the teacher's side by the time she caught up with him.

"Ms. Mendeleiev," he stated, holding out Emma, "this isn't our doll, so I'm returning it."

Ms. Mendeleiev glared down at him, then let her gaze fall on Marinette. "Again!" She shot, causing her to flinch. "You already tried returning your doll yesterday morning and now you're trying again!"

Adrien whipped his head to stare at Marinette in disbelief. "You tried to return Emma!"

"It's not what it sounds like!" She tried to counter, but couldn't come up with an excuse as to why she tried to return Emma the day before, so instead she settled for distracting them, grabbing Emma from Adrien and holding her out. "B-but anyways, this situation is different, this really isn't our doll!"

She mentally apologized to Chat as she used his baby as a sacrifice.

Ms. Mendeleiev deepened her glare. "If it's not yours then whose is it?"

Marinette opened her mouth to reply but Emma chose that moment to start crying. She frantically began to calm the baby down as Adrien attempted to explain the situation.

Ms. Mendeleiev listened to his explanation, and then waited, watching Marinette as she somehow managed to get Chat's Emma to stop crying. As soon as the doll ceased it's cries, Ms. Mendeleiev shook her head.

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"

She opened her eyes where two confused teens were staring up at her, so she continued.

"Maybe if you two weren't always running late then you wouldn't have missed out on part of the explanation of how these dolls work." She looked between the two students with eyes like knives as they stared back at her blankly.

Ms. Mendeleiev took Marinette's arm and held it up. "This," she extenuated by pointing to the wristband she wore which was provided to all of the students on the first day of the assignment, "this has a censor in it that's linked to your doll. Only those who are wearing the bracelets can care for the baby. In other words, if that baby wasn't the one assigned to you then you wouldn't have been able to stop it from crying."

With a humph she pushed her way between them and strode towards the door, only stopping to turn around once she was halfway through.

"If you try to exchange your baby again I will fail you on this assignment."

With that statement she was gone, leaving two frozen, wide-eyed teens alone in the room with a giggling baby.

* * *

 **I hope you enjoyed the update!**


	11. Chapter 11

Emma's giggling was the only sound in the room. Marinette tried to look at Adrien but quickly averted her gaze when she saw that he was staring back at her. His eyes, questioning and curious, seemed to penetrate the careful barrier she had set up, one which hid the answers to all of her lies and secrets.

"M-maybe," she started, trying to make sense of everything, "my friend's doll is defective, maybe anybody with one of these bracelets can take care of it."

It was a bad excuse, and she knew that it couldn't explain how Chat was able to put her Emma to sleep, but it's all she was able to come up with.

It was the only explanation that she _wanted_ to accept, because deep down, another conclusion was forming in her mind, one which she wasn't yet ready to confront.

Adrien finally adverted his gaze from her, letting it fall to the floor with a serious expression. Things weren't adding up, they hadn't added up since the beginning, and now this realization was finally starting to gnaw at him.

He needed answers.

"Yesterday," he couldn't bring himself to look at Marinette, to see her reaction "didn't you say that you found Louis lying around? But now you're telling me that he belongs to your friend."

In his peripheral vision the small girl grew fidgety as she tried to come up with an answer, with a _lie_. Why would she even need to lie about this sort of thing in the first place?

It wasn't just Marinette either, he himself had made up more excuses in the past couple of days than he was used to.

Once the gears started turning there was no stopping them, his brain would continue to look further into this issue until acceptable answers arose.

He waited for Marinette's reply.

She _had_ told him that, hadn't she. This wasn't good, she was so far into her lies that she couldn't keep track of them anymore. After a moment of hesitation, she finally managed to squeak out a half-baked reply. "R-right! That's what I meant of course! Silly me..."

Marinette nervously glanced at him to try and read his expression, but Adrien was no longer looking at her. She was worried that he might be angry, but the face he wore was so much worse.

Concentration.

He was listening to every word she spoke, carefully analyzing her reactions. She would have to tread carefully over this thin sheet of ice because one mistake, a single small screw up, could cause her to go crashing through. One obvious lie would lead to another, and another, and so many more until it was impossible to escape from all of them.

This would definitely cause a strain in their relationship, the relationship that she worked so hard to build up. It would be gone, and reasonably so. Nobody wanted a friendship built on lies.

Adrien lifted his head ever so slightly, moving on to the next question without giving Marinette the chance to explain any further, her reaction was all that he needed.

"Why did you tell me that Louis was a boy?"

He finally turned to stare back at the girl beside him as he tried to fit more pieces of the puzzle into place.

Perhaps it was mean of him to ask such a question. He knew that there was no possible reason Marinette would need to lie about the baby's gender unless she was hiding something, but he asked regardless. Typically as Adrien he would let something such as this slide, sparing the other party the embarrassment of knowing he could see through their lies, but in that moment he let his more blunt Chat side break through his outer shell.

"W-well, that's because-"

"How come we're able to care for this baby when Emma should be the only one who responds to our bracelets?"

He moved on before Marinette could finish answering his previous question. Her lies were irrelevant to the answers he sought.

"Like I said, maybe this doll must be defective."

She spoke with more clarity in her voice than before. Adrien studied her. It wasn't a lie this time, it was an _excuse_. She wasn't trying to convince _him_ that this was true, she was trying to convince _herself_.

Adrien looked down at the doll in her arms. "Then let's find out."

Marinette, who was expecting another question, was taken off guard by his sudden statement.

Adrien gently took her hand and led her out of the classroom, had this been happening under different circumstances she probably would have blushed and internally fan-girled over the action.

The hallways were fairly bare, most students had already made their way home, but there were still a few stragglers wandering around.

He led her through the halls, studying everybody they passed and coming to an abrupt stop when he found what he was looking for.

Standing by a locker was Kim, getting ready for one of the many sports teams he was on.

"Kim!" Adrien waved to his classmate as he approached him. "How's the assignment going?"

"Horrible!" He slammed his locker door shut. "Sabrina won't let me touch Chloe Jr. You use your daughter as a football _once_ and suddenly that makes you a bad parent!"

"O-oh, I see..." Adrien stopped in his tacks and began to move backwards, protectively shielding his arm in front of Emma, "well, I'll see you around."

He turned and quickly led Marinette down a different hallway. "On second thought, let's look for someone else."

"Who are we looking for?" She asked, getting nervous.

"One of our classmates, or anyone else doing this assignment."

"Why..." she looked down to Emma who she carried in her free arm. She already knew the answer, but asked anyway.

Adrien glanced back at her. "To see if Louis really is defective."

"I don't...I don't think we should."

They say that ignorance is bliss don't they? Why couldn't the two of them just remain ignorant, continuing to believe that Louis is defective? That night she could give Chat back his Emma and Adrien could get back their Emma. That way they could continue on with their lives, both happily remaining ignorant.

Adrien stopped and turned to her, as though he just read her mind. "Because I don't want to remain ignorant any longer."

His words made a knot form in the pit of Marinette's stomach.

He looked away and spotted two girls by the front door. They were from another class which was also doing the parenting assignment, which was made plainly clear by the doll one of them held.

He approached them regardless of Marinette's protests.

"Hi!" He took Emma from Marinette and as if on cue, the doll started crying. "I was wondering if you could try to calm our baby down."

The two students looked at each other, then to Adrien, confusion written all over their faces. One of them spoke up before her friend.

"It won't work, only the parents can put stop the baby from crying."

Marinette's chest tightened as the student repeated the same words that Ms. Mendeleive had told them only several minutes earlier. Adrien, however, continued to push the issue.

"Please, could you just try?" He asked, holding out Emma and the bottle. "We're testing something."

The girl gave Adrien a strange look, but still took Emma and the bottle from him. She cradled Emma in her arms and held the bottle to the baby's mouth.

Nothing happened.

There were no slurping sounds or anything. Emma continued to cry.

"Maybe she's not hungry!" Marinette had to add in.

Adrien got out one of Emma's diapers and handed it to the student. She tried changing it but once again, Emma had no reaction.

"M-maybe she needs to be comforted." Marinette tried again. She had to convince them, she had to convince _herself_.

The student tried to rock Emma for a bit before sighing and shaking her head.

"I told you, it's not going to work."

"Maybe..."

Marinette started to come up with another excuse but stopped as Adrien rested his hand on her should. She looked up to him and he simply shook his head.

"Thanks for your help, we'll take it from here."

The girl handed Emma back to him and the two of them headed off. Adrien turned to Marinette and held out the crying baby.

"Try calming her down."

"I don't want to," she whispered.

"Please."

Marinette looked up into his eyes, eyes filled with theories and conclusions. He knew, and there wasn't anything she could do to stop him from knowing.

She slowly reached out her arms and took Emma from him. With only a few short rocks, the baby's cries died down until there was nothing but silence.

"Marinette," he gazed down at her but she couldn't bear to meet his eyes, "can I ask you something?"

"About the doll?" Her voice was barely audible.

Adrien shook his head.

"Marinette you...you've never been akumatized, have you." She looked away and that was the only answer he needed. "Neither have I."

Marinette tightly clutched Emma close to her chest before fully turning away from him.

"I need to go home now...and think."


End file.
